No Arabic abstract
Lithium niobate (LiNbO$_3$, LN) plays an important role in holographic storage, and molybdenum doped LiNbO$_3$ (LN:Mo) is an excellent candidate for holographic data storage. In this paper, the basic features of Mo doped LiNbO$_3$, such as the site preference, electronic structure, and the lattice distortions, have been explored from first-principles calculations. Mo substituting Nb with its highest charge state of +6 is found to be the most stable point defect form. The energy levels formed by Mo with different charge states are distributed in the band gap, which are responsible for the absorption in the visible region. The transition of Mo in different charge states implies molybdenum can serve as a photorefractive center in LN:Mo. In addition, the interactions between Mo and intrinsic or extrinsic point defects are also investigated in this work. Intrinsic defects $tt V_{Li}^-$ could cause the movement of the $tt Mo_{Nb}^+$ energy levels. The exploration of Mo, Mg co-doped LiNbO$_3$ reveals that although Mg ion could not shift the energy level of Mo, it can change the distribution of electrons in Mo and Mg co-doped LN (LN:Mo,Mg) which help with the photorefractive phenomenon.
Reliable first-principles calculations of electrochemical processes require accurate prediction of the interfacial capacitance, a challenge for current computationally-efficient continuum solvation methodologies. We develop a model for the double layer of a metallic electrode that reproduces the features of the experimental capacitance of Ag(100) in a non-adsorbing, aqueous electrolyte, including a broad hump in the capacitance near the Potential of Zero Charge (PZC), and a dip in the capacitance under conditions of low ionic strength. Using this model, we identify the necessary characteristics of a solvation model suitable for first-principles electrochemistry of metal surfaces in non-adsorbing, aqueous electrolytes: dielectric and ionic nonlinearity, and a dielectric-only region at the interface. The dielectric nonlinearity, caused by the saturation of dipole rotational response in water, creates the capacitance hump, while ionic nonlinearity, caused by the compactness of the diffuse layer, generates the capacitance dip seen at low ionic strength. We show that none of the previously developed solvation models simultaneously meet all these criteria. We design the Nonlinear Electrochemical Soft-Sphere solvation model (NESS) which both captures the capacitance features observed experimentally, and serves as a general-purpose continuum solvation model.
Electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media is a promising electrochemical energy conversion strategy. Ruthenium (Ru) is an efficient catalyst with a desirable cost for HER, however, the sluggish H2O dissociation process, due to the low H2O adsorption on its surface, currently hampers the performances of this catalyst in alkaline HER. Herein, we demonstrate that the H2O adsorption improves significantly by the construction of Ru-O-Mo sites. We prepared Ru/MoO2 catalysts with Ru-O-Mo sites through a facile thermal treatment process and assessed the creation of Ru-O-Mo interfaces by transmission electron microscope (TEM) and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). By using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and H2O adsorption tests, we proved Ru-O-Mo sites have tenfold stronger H2O adsorption ability than that of Ru catalyst. The catalysts with Ru-O-Mo sites exhibited a state-of-the-art overpotential of 16 mV at 10 mA cm-2 in 1 M KOH electrolyte, demonstrating a threefold reduction than the previous bests of Ru (59 mV) and commercial Pt (31 mV) catalysts. We proved the stability of these performances over 40 hours without decline. These results could open a new path for designing efficient and stable catalysts.
With a large-scale usage of portable electric appliances, a high demand for increasingly high density energy storage devices has emerged. MoO3 has, in principle, a large potential as negative electrode material in supercapacitive devices, due to high charge densities that can be obtained from its reversible redox reactions. Nevertheless, the extremely poor electrochemical stability of MoO3 in aqueous electrolytes prevents a practical use in high capacitance devices. In this work, we describe how to overcome this severe stability issue by forming amorphous molybdenum oxide/tantalum oxide nanotubes by anodic oxidation of a Mo-Ta alloy. The presence of a critical amount of Ta-oxide (> 20 at-%) prevents the electrochemical decay of the MoO3 phase and thus yields an extremely high stability. Due to the protection provided by tantalum oxide, no capacitance losses are measureable after 10000 charg-ing/discharging cycles.
Phosphorene is emerging as a promising 2D semiconducting material with a direct band gap and high carrier mobility. In this paper, we examine the role of the extrinsic point defects including surface adatoms in modifying the electronic properties of phosphorene using density functional theory. The surface adatoms considered are B, C, N, O and F with a [He] core electronic configuration. Our calculations show that B and C, with electronegativity close to P, prefer to break the sp3 bonds of phosphorene, and reside at the interstitial sites in the 2D lattice by forming sp2 bonds with the native atoms. On the other hand, N, O and F, which are more electronegative than P, prefer the surface sites by attracting the lone pairs of phosphorene. B, N and F adsorption will also introduce local magnetic moment to the lattice. Moreover, B, C, N and F adatoms will modify the band gap of phosphorene yielding metallic transverse tunneling characters. Oxygen does not modify the band gap of phosphorene, and a diode like tunneling behavior is observed. Our results therefore offer a possible route to tailor the electronic and magnetic properties of phosphorene by the adatom functionalization, and provide the physical insights of the environmental sensitivity of phosphorene, which will be helpful to experimentalists in evaluating the performance and aging effects of phosphorene-based electronic devices.
The ground state electronic structures of the actinide oxides AO, A2O3 and AO2 (A=U, Np, Pu, Am, Cm, Bk, Cf) are determined from first-principles calculations, using the self-interaction corrected local spin-density (SIC-LSD) approximation. Emphasis is put on the degree of f-electron localization, which for AO2 and A2O3 is found to follow the stoichiometry, namely corresponding to A(4+) ions in the dioxide and A(3+) ions in the sesquioxides. In contrast, the A(2+) ionic configuration is not favorable in the monoxides, which therefore become metallic. The energetics of the oxidation and reduction of the actinide dioxides is discussed, and it is found that the dioxide is the most stable oxide for the actinides from Np onwards. Our study reveals a strong link between preferred oxidation number and degree of localization which is confirmed by comparing to the ground state configurations of the corresponding lanthanide oxides. The ionic nature of the actinide oxides emerges from the fact that only those compounds will form where the calculated ground state valency agrees with the nominal valency expected from a simple charge counting.