No Arabic abstract
By merging single-site typical medium theory with density functional theory we introduce a self-consistent framework for electronic structure calculations of materials with substitutional disorder which takes into account Anderson localization. The scheme and details of the implementation are presented and applied to the hypothetical alloy Li$_{c}$Be$_{1-c}$, and the results are compared with those obtained with the coherent potential approximation. Furthermore we demonstrate that Anderson localization suppresses ferromagnetic order for a very low concentration of (i) carbon impurities substituting oxygen in MgO$_{1-c}$C$_{c}$, and (ii) manganese impurities substituting magnesium in Mg$_{1-c}$Mn$_c$O for the low-spin magnetic configuration.
We generalize the typical medium dynamical cluster approximation (TMDCA) and the local Blackman, Esterling, and Berk (BEB) method for systems with off-diagonal disorder. Using our extended formalism we perform a systematic study of the effects of non-local disorder-induced correlations and of off-diagonal disorder on the density of states and the mobility edge of the Anderson localized states. We apply our method to the three-dimensional Anderson model with configuration dependent hopping and find fast convergence with modest cluster sizes. Our results are in good agreement with the data obtained using exact diagonalization, and the transfer matrix and kernel polynomial methods.
The electronic and magnetic properties of neutral substitutional transition-metal dopants in dia- mond are calculated within density functional theory using the generalized gradient approximation to the exchange-correlation potential. Ti and Fe are nonmagnetic, whereas the ground state of V, Cr and Mn are magnetic with a spin entirely localized on the magnetic ion. For Co, Ni, and Cu, the ground state is magnetic with the spin distributed over the transition-metal ion and the nearest-neighbor carbon atoms; furthermore a bound state is found in the gap that originates from the hybridization of the 3d-derived level of the dopant and the 2p-derived dangling bonds of the nearest-neighbor carbons. A p{d hybridization model is developed in order to describe the origin of the magnetic interaction. This model predicts high-spin to low-spin transitions for Ni and Cu under compressive strain.
We develop a systematic typical medium dynamical cluster approximation that provides a proper description of the Anderson localization transition in three dimensions (3D). Our method successfully captures the localization phenomenon both in the low and large disorder regimes, and allows us to study the localization in different momenta cells, which renders the discovery that the Anderson localization transition occurs in a cell-selective fashion. As a function of cluster size, our method systematically recovers the re-entrance behavior of the mobility edge and obtains the correct critical disorder strength for Anderson localization in 3D.
How atoms in covalent solids rearrange over a medium-range length-scale during amorphization is a long pursued question whose answer could profoundly shape our understanding on amorphous (a-) networks. Based on ab-intio calculations and reverse Monte Carlo simulations of experiments, we surprisingly find that even though the severe chemical disorder in a-GeTe undermined the prevailing medium range order (MRO) picture, it is responsible for the experimentally observed MRO. That this thing could happen depends on a novel atomic packing scheme. And this scheme results in a kind of homopolar bond chain-like polyhedral clusters. Within this scheme, the formation of homopolar bonds can be well explained by an electron-counting model and further validated by quantitative bond energy analysis based. Our study suggests that the underlying physics for chemical disorder in a-GeTe is intrinsic and universal to all severely chemically disordered covalent glasses.
Water is of the utmost importance for life and technology. However, a genuinely predictive ab initio model of water has eluded scientists. We demonstrate that a fully ab initio approach, relying on the strongly constrained and appropriately normed (SCAN) density functional, provides such a description of water. SCAN accurately describes the balance among covalent bonds, hydrogen bonds, and van der Waals interactions that dictates the structure and dynamics of liquid water. Notably, SCAN captures the density difference between water and ice I{it h} at ambient conditions, as well as many important structural, electronic, and dynamic properties of liquid water. These successful predictions of the versatile SCAN functional open the gates to study complex processes in aqueous phase chemistry and the interactions of water with other materials in an efficient, accurate, and predictive, ab initio manner.