No Arabic abstract
Using first principles simulations we have investigated the structural and bonding properties of dense fluid oxygen up to 180 GPa. We have found that band gap closure occurs in the molecular liquid, with a slow transition from a semi-conducting to a poor metallic state occurring over a wide pressure range. At approximately 80 GPa, molecular dissociation is observed in the metallic fluid. Spin fluctuations play a key role in determining the electronic structure of the low pressure fluid, while they are suppressed at high pressure.
We compute the thermal conductivity of water within linear response theory from equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, by adopting two different approaches. In one, the potential energy surface (PES) is derived on the fly from the electronic ground state of density functional theory (DFT) and the corresponding analytical expression is used for the energy flux. In the other, the PES is represented by a deep neural network (DNN) trained on DFT data, whereby the PES has an explicit local decomposition and the energy flux takes a particularly simple expression. By virtue of a gauge invariance principle, established by Marcolongo, Umari, and Baroni, the two approaches should be equivalent if the PES were reproduced accurately by the DNN model. We test this hypothesis by calculating the thermal conductivity, at the GGA (PBE) level of theory, using the direct formulation and its DNN proxy, finding that both approaches yield the same conductivity, in excess of the experimental value by approximately 60%. Besides being numerically much more efficient than its direct DFT counterpart, the DNN scheme has the advantage of being easily applicable to more sophisticated DFT approximations, such as meta-GGA and hybrid functionals, for which it would be hard to derive analytically the expression of the energy flux. We find in this way, that a DNN model, trained on meta-GGA (SCAN) data, reduce the deviation from experiment of the predicted thermal conductivity by about 50%, leaving the question open as to whether the residual error is due to deficiencies of the functional, to a neglect of nuclear quantum effects in the atomic dynamics, or, likely, to a combination of the two.
The full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method with the generalized gradient approximation for the exchange-correlation potential (FLAPW-GGA) is used to predict the electronic and elastic properties of the newly discovered superconducting nanolaminate Ti2InC. The band structure, density of states and Fermi surface features are discussed. The optimized lattice parameters, independent elastic constants, bulk and shear moduli, compressibility are evaluated and discussed. The elastic parameters of the polycrystalline Ti2InC ceramics are estimated numerically for the first time.
Density Functional Theory calculations have been performed to obtain lattice parameters, elastic constants, and electronic properties of ideal pyrochlores with the composition A$_2$B$_2$O$_7$ (where A=La,Y and B=Ti,Sn,Hf, Zr). Some thermal properties are also inferred from the elastic properties. A decrease of the sound velocity (and thus, of the Debye temperature) with the atomic mass of the B ion is observed. Static and dynamical atomic charges are obtained to quantify the degree of covalency/ionicity. A large anomalous contribution to the dynamical charge is observed for Hf, Zr, and specially for Ti. It is attributed to the hybridization between occupied $2p$ states of oxygen and unoccupied d states of the B cation. The analysis based on Mulliken population and deformation charge integrated in the Voronoi polyhedra indicates that the ionicity of these pyrochlores increases in the order Sn--Ti--Hf--Zr. The charge deformation contour plots support this assignment.
First-principles FLAPW-GGA band structure calculations were employed to examine the structural, electronic properties and the chemical bonding picture for four ZrCuSiAs-like Th-based quaternary pnictide oxides ThCuPO, ThCuAsO, ThAgPO, and ThAgAsO. These compounds were found to be semimetals and may be viewed as intermediate systems between two main isostructural groups of superconducting and semiconducting 1111 phases. The Th 5f states participate actively in the formation of valence bands and the Th 5f states for ThMPnO phases are itinerant and partially occupied. We found also that the bonding picture in ThMPnO phases can be classified as a high-anisotropic mixture of ionic and covalent contributions: inside [Th2O2] and [M2Pn2] blocks, mixed covalent-ionic bonds take place, whereas between the adjacent [Th2O2]/[M2Pn2] blocks, ionic bonds emerge owing to [Th2O2] to [M2Pn2] charge transfer.
We demonstrate the accurate calculation of entropies and free energies for a variety of liquid metals using an extension of the two phase thermodynamic (2PT) model based on a decomposition of the velocity autocorrelation function into gas-like (hard sphere) and solid-like (harmonic) subsystems. The hard sphere model for the gas-like component is shown to give systematically high entropies for liquid metals as a direct result of the unphysical Lorentzian high-frequency tail. Using a memory function framework we derive a generally applicable velocity autocorrelation and frequency spectrum for the diffusive component which recovers the low frequency (long time) behavior of the hard sphere model while providing for realistic short time coherence and high frequency tails to the spectrum. This approach provides a significant increase in the accuracy of the calculated entropies for liquid metals and is compared to ambient pressure data for liquid sodium, aluminum, gallium, tin, and iron. The use of this method for the determination of melt boundaries is demonstrated with a calculation of the high pressure bcc melt boundary for sodium. With the significantly improved accuracy available with the memory function treatment for softer interatomic potentials, the 2PT model for entropy calculations should find broader application in high energy density science, warm dense matter, planetary science, geophysics, and material science.