No Arabic abstract
The elastic, thermodynamic, and electronic properties of fluorite RuO_2 under high pressure are investigated by plane-wave pseudopotential density functional theory. The optimized lattice parameters, elastic constants, bulk modulus, and shear modulus are consistent with other theoretical values. The phase transition from modified fluorite-type to fluorite is 88 GPa (by localized density approximation, LDA) or 115.5 GPa (by generalized gradient approximation, GGA). The Youngs modulus and Lames coefficients are also studied under high pressure. The structure turned out to be stable for the pressure up to 120 GPa by calculating elastic constants. In addition, the thermodynamic properties, including the Debye temperature, heat capacity, thermal expansion coefficient, Gruneisen parameter, and Poissons ratio, are investigated. A small band gap is found in the electronic structure of fluorite RuO_2 and the bandwidth increases with the pressure. Also, the present mechanical and electronic properties demonstrate that the bonding nature is a combination of covalent, ionic, and metallic contributions.
Using first-principles calculations within the generalized gradient approximation, we predicted the lattice parameters, elastic constants, vibrational properties, and electronic structure of cementite (Fe3C). Its nine single-crystal elastic constants were obtained by computing total energies or stresses as a function of applied strain. Furthermore, six of them were determined from the initial slopes of the calculated longitudinal and transverse acoustic phonon branches along the [100], [010] and [001] directions. The three methods agree well with each other, the calculated polycrystalline elastic moduli are also in good overall agreement with experiments. Our calculations indicate that Fe3C is mechanically stable. The experimentally observed high elastic anisotropy of Fe3C is also confirmed by our study. Based on electronic density of states and charge density distribution, the chemical bonding in Fe3C was analyzed and was found to exhibit a complex mixture of metallic, covalent, and ionic characters.
First-principles calculations through a FLAPW-GGA method for six possible polymorphs of ruthenium mononitride RuN with various atomic coordination numbers CNs: cubic zinc blende (ZB) and cooperite PtS-like structures with CNs = 4; cubic rock-salt (RS), hexagonal WC-like and NiAs-like structures with CNs = 6 and cubic CsCl-like structure with CN = 8 indicate that the most stable is ZB structure, which is much more preferable for RuN than the recently reported RS structure for synthesized RuN samples. The elastic and electronic properties of ZB-RuN were investigated and discussed in comparison with those for RS-RuN polymorph.
Zirconium alloys are used as nuclear fuel cladding material due to their mechanical and corrosion resistant properties together with their favorable cross-section for neutron scattering. At running conditions, however, there will be an increase of hydrogen in the vicinity of the cladding surface at the water side of the fuel. The hydrogen will diffuse into the cladding material and at certain conditions, such as lower temperatures and external load, hydrides will precipitate out in the material and cause well known embrittlement, blistering and other unwanted effects. Using phase-field methods it is now possible to model precipitation build-up in metals, for example as a function of hydrogen concentration, temperature and external load, but the technique relies on input of parameters, such as the formation energy of the hydrides and matrix. To that end, we have computed, using the density functional theory (DFT) code GPAW, the latent heat of fusion as well as solved the crystal structure for three zirconium hydride polymorphs: delta-ZrH1.6, gamma-ZrH, and epsilon-ZrH2.
The high pressure structural properties of bismuth oxide Bi2SiO5 have been investigated up to 28 GPa using in situ powder synchrotron X-ray diffraction and up to 50 GPa with DFT calculations. The monoclinic structure is found to persist up to about 20 GPa, where a notable change in the compressibility occurs. The DFT data imply that this is due to a second-order phase transition from the ambient condition monoclinic structure with space group Cc to an orthorhombic polymorph with space group Cmcm. This transition involves the straightening of the chains formed by corner-connected SiO4 tetrahedra, that suppresses the ferroelectricity in the high pressure, centrosymmetric phase of Bi2SiO5. The stereo-chemical activity of the Bi3+ lone electron pair is found to decrease with increasing pressure, but it can still be identifed in the calculated electron density difference maps at 50 GPa.
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.