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Register a new userDensity-functional investigation of the rhombohedral to simple cubic phase transition of arsenic
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We report on our investigation of the crystal structure of arsenic under compression, focusing primarily on the pressure-induced A7 to simple cubic (sc) phase transition. The two-atom rhombohedral unit cell is subjected to pressures ranging from 0 GPa to 200 GPa; for each given pressure, cell lengths and angles, as well as atomic positions, are allowed to vary until the fully relaxed structure is obtained. We find that the nearest and next-nearest neighbor distances give the clearest indication of the occurrence of a structural phase transition. Calculations are performed using the local density approximation (LDA) and the PBE and PW91 generalized gradient approximations (GGA-PBE and GGA-PW91) for the exchange-correlation functional. The A7 to sc transition is found to occur at 21+/-1 GPa in the LDA, at 28+/-1 GPa in the GGA-PBE and at 29+/-1 GPa in the GGA-PW91; no volume discontinuity is observed across the transition in any of the three cases. We use k-point grids as dense as 66X66X66 to enable us to present reliably converged results for the A7 to sc transition of arsenic.
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Simple cubic (SC) phase has been long experimentally determined as the high-pressure phase III of elemental calcium (Ca) since 1984. However, recent density functional calculations within semi-local approximation showed that this SC phase is structurally unstable by exhibiting severely imaginary phonons, and is energetically unstable with respect to a theoretical body-centered tetragonal I41/amd structure over the pressure range of phase III. These calculations generated extensive debates on the validity of SC phase. Here we have re-examined the SC structure by performing more precise density functional calculations within hybrid functionals of Heyd-Scuseria-Erhzerhof (HSE) and PBE0. Our calculations were able to rationalize fundamentally the phase stability of SC structure over all other known phases by evidence of its actual energetic stability above 33 GPa and its intrinsically dynamical stability without showing any imaginary phonons in the entire pressure range studied. We further established that the long-thought theoretical I41/amd structure remains stable in a narrow pressure range before entering SC phase and is actually the structure of experimental Ca-III synthesized recently at low temperature 14 K as supported by the excellent agreement between our simulated X-ray diffraction patterns and the experimental data. Our results shed strong light on the crucial role played by the precise electron exchange energy in a proper description of the potential energy of Ca.
The material presented here is supplementary to the article entitled: Density-functional investigation of the rhombohedral to simple cubic phase transition of arsenic; it deals with the convergence issues involved in studying a semi-metal to metal structural phase transition such as the A7 to sc transition of arsenic.
A recent experimental study reported the successful synthesis of an orthorhombic FeB4 with a high hardness of 62 GPa, which has reignited extensive interests on whether transition metal borides (TRBs) compounds will become superhard materials. However, it is contradicted with some theoretical studies suggesting transition metal boron compounds are unlikely to become superhard materials. Here, we examined structural and electronic properties of FeB4 using density functional theory. The electronic calculations show the good metallicity and covalent FeB bonding. Meanwhile, we extensively investigated stress strain relations of FeB4 under various tensile and shear loading directions. The calculated weakest tensile and shear stresses are 40 GPa and 25 GPa, respectively. Further simulations (e.g. electron localized function and bond length along the weakest loading direction) on FeB4 show the weak Fe-B bonding is responsible for this low hardness. Moreover, these results are consistent with the value of Vickers hardness (11.7 to 32.3 GPa) by employing different empirical hardness models and below the superhardness threshold of 40 GPa. Our current results suggest FeB4 is a hard material and unlikely to become superhard.
Recent experiments demonstrate the synthesis of 2D black arsenic exhibits excellent electronic and transport properties for nanoscale device applications. Herein, we study by first principle calculations density functional theory together with non equilibrium Greens function methods, the structural, electronic, adsorption strength, charge transfer, and transport properties of five gas molecules CO, CO2, NO, NO2, and NH3 on a monolayer of black arsenic. Our findings suggest optimum sensing performance of black arsenic that can even surpass that of other 2D material such as graphene. Further, we note the optimum adsorption sites for all the five gas molecules on the black arsenic and significant charge transfer between the gas molecules and black arsenic are responsible for optimum adsorption strength. Particularly, the significant charger transfer is a sign that the interaction between the target gas molecule and nanoscale device is sufficient to yield noticeable changes in the electronic transport properties. As a proof of principle, we have examined the sensitivity of a modeled nano-scale device towards CO, CO2, NO, NO2, and NH3 gas molecules, indicating that it is indeed possible to reliably detect all the five gas molecules. Thus, based on all these findings, such as sensitivity and selectivity to all the five gas molecules adsorption make black arsenic a promising material as an optimum gas sensor nano-scale device.
We find that the recently developed self consistent and appropriately normed (SCAN) meta-generalized gradient approximation, which has been found to provide highly accurate results for many materials, is, however, not able to describe the stability and properties of phases of Fe important for steel. This is due to an overestimated tendency towards magnetism and exaggeration of magnetic energies, which we also find in other transition metals.
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