No Arabic abstract
Tungsten ditelluride (WTe2) has attracted significant attention due to its interesting electronic properties, such as the unsaturated magnetoresistance and superconductivity. Recently, it has been proposed to be a new type of Weyl semimetal, which is distinguished from other transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) from a topological prospective. Here, we study the structure of WTe2 under pressure with a crystal structure prediction and ab initio calculations combined with high pressure synchrotron X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy measurements. We find that the ambient orthorhombic structure (Td) transforms into a monoclinic structure (1T) at around 4-5 GPa. As the transition pressure is very close to the critical point in recent high-pressure electrical transport measurements, the emergence of superconductivity in WTe2 under pressure is attributed to the Td-1T structure phase transition, which associates with a sliding mechanism of the TMD layers and results in a shorter Te-Te interlayer distance compared to the intralayer ones. These results highlight the critical role of the interlayer stacking and chalcogen interactions on the electronic and superconducting properties of multilayered TMDs under hydrostatic strain environments.
Nitrogen oxides are textbook class of molecular compounds, with extensive industrial applications. Nitrogen and oxygen are also among the most abundant elements in the universe. We explore the N-O system at 0 K and up to 500 GPa though ab initio evolutionary simulations. Results show that two phase transformations of stable molecular NO2 exist at 7 and 64 GPa, and followed by decomposition of NO2 at 91 GPa. All of the NO+NO3- structures are found to be metastable at T=0 K, so experimentally reported ionic NO+NO3- is either metastable or stabilized by temperature. Upon increasing pressure, N2O5 transforms from P-1 to C2/c structure at 51 GPa. NO becomes thermodynamically stable at 198 GPa. This polymeric phase is superconducting (Tc = 2.0 K) and contains a -N-N- backbone.
Analogous to 2D layered transition metal dichalcogenides, the TlSe family of 1D chain materials with Zintl-type structure exhibits exotic phenomena under high-pressure. In the present work, we have systematically investigated the high-pressure behavior of TlInTe 2 using Raman spectroscopy, synchrotron X-ray diffraction, and transport measurements, in combination with crystal structure prediction (CSP) based on the evolutionary approach and first principles calculations. We found that TlInTe$_2$ undergoes a pressure driven semiconductor to semimetal transition at 4 GPa, followed by a superconducting transition at 5.7 GPa (with Tc = 3.8 K) induced by a Lifshitz transition. The Lifshitz transition is initiated by the appearance of new electron pockets on the Fermi surface, which evolve with pressure and connect to the adjacent electron pockets forming an umbrella shaped Fermi surface at the top and bottom of the Brillouin zone. An unusual giant phonon softening (Ag mode) concomitant with a V-shaped Tc behavior appears at 10-12 GPa as a result of the interaction of optical phonons with the conduction electrons, resulting in Fano line shaped asymmetry in Ag mode. A prominent Tc anomaly concurrent with the Ag mode softening at 19-20 GPa is correlated to the semimetal to metal transition. The CSP calculations reveal that these transitions are not accompanied by any structural phase transitions up to the maximum pressure achieved, 33.5 GPa. Our findings on TlInTe$_2$ open up a new platform to study a plethora of unexplored high pressure novel phenomena in TlSe family induced by Lifshitz transition (electronic driven), phonon softening and electron-phonon coupling.
Monolayer WTe2 attracts rapidly growing interests for its large-gap quantum spin Hall effect,which enables promising apllications in flexible logic devices. Due to one-dimensional W-W chains,1T-WTe2 exhibits unique anisotropic structure and promising properties, which can be modified by simply applying strains. Based on the first-principles simulations, we show that phonon branch undergoes soft down to negative frequency at special q points under different critical strains, i.e., epsilon_a = 11.55 percent along a-axis (with W-W chains) direction, epsilon_b = 7.0 percent along b-axis direction and epsilon_ab = 8.44 percent along biaxial direction. Before each critical strain, the Raman-shift of A1_g, A3_g, and A4_g modes, corresponding to the main peaks in Raman spectra of 1T-WTe2 , shows anisotropic response to uniaxial strain but most sensitive to biaxial strain. Interestingly, we find that the frequency shift of A3_g mode show parabolic characters of strained 1T-WTe2, then we split it into two parts and it shows a Raman-shift transition at about 5 percent strains. While for the A1_g and A4_g modes,the frequencies change linearly. Through careful structure and vibration analysis, we try to explain these Raman irregularity in strained 1T-WTe2.
We present computer simulations of liquid and solid phases of condensed methane at pressures below 25 GPa, between 150 and 300 K, where no appreciable molecular dissociation occurs. We used molecular dynamics (MD) and metadynamics techniques, and empirical potentials in the rigid molecule approximation, whose validity was confirmed a posteriori by carrying out it ab initio MD simulations for selected pressure and temperature conditions. Our results for the melting line are in satisfactory agreement with existing measurements. We find that the fcc crystal transforms into a hcp structure with 4 molecules per unit cell (B phase) at about 10 GPa and 150 K, and that the B phase transforms into a monoclinic high pressure phase above 20 GPa. Our results for solid/solid phase transitions are consistent with those of Raman studies but the phase boundaries estimated in our calculations are at higher pressure than those inferred from spectroscopic data.
Electrical resistivity measurements under high pressures up to 29 GPa were performed for oxypnictide compound LaFeAsO. We found a pressure-induced superconductivity in LaFeAsO. The maximum value of Tc is 21 K at ~12 GPa. The pressure dependence of the Tc is similar to those of LaFeAsO1-xFx series reported previously.