No Arabic abstract
The potential of a wide range of layered ternary carbide and nitride MAX phases as conductors in interconnect metal lines in advanced CMOS technology nodes has been evaluated using automated first principles simulations based on density functional theory. The resistivity scaling potential of these compounds, i.e. the sensitivity of their resistivity to reduced line dimensions, has been benchmarked against Cu and Ru by evaluating their transport properties within a semiclassical transport formalism. In addition, their cohesive energy has been assessed as a proxy for the resistance against electromigration and the need for diffusion barriers. The results indicate that numerous MAX phases show promise as conductors in interconnects of advanced CMOS technology nodes.
The calculation of self-energy corrections to the electron bands of a metal requires the evaluation of the intraband contribution to the polarizability in the small-q limit. When neglected, as in standard GW codes for semiconductors and insulators, a spurious gap opens at the Fermi energy. Systematic methods to include intraband contributions to the polarizability exist, but require a computationally intensive Fermi-surface integration. We propose a numerically cheap and stable method, based on a fit of the power expansion of the polarizability in the small-q region. We test it on the homogeneous electron gas and on real metals such as sodium and aluminum.
Core-level shifts and core-hole screening effects in alloy formation are studied ``ab initio by constrained-density-functional total-energy calculations. For our case study, the ordered intermetallic alloy MgAu, final-state effects are essential to account for the experimental Mg 1s shift, while they are negligible for Au 4f. We explain the differences in the screening by analyzing the calculated charge density response to the core hole perturbation.
We develop a theoretical and computational framework to study polarons in semiconductors and insulators from first principles. Our approach provides the formation energy, excitation energy, and wavefunction of both electron and hole polarons, and takes into account the coupling of the electron or hole to all phonons. An important feature of the present method is that it does not require supercell calculations, and relies exclusively on electron band structures, phonon dispersions, and electron-phonon matrix elements obtained from calculations in the crystal unit cell. Starting from the Kohn-Sham (KS) equations of density-functional theory, we formulate the polaron problem as a variational minimization, and we obtain a nonlinear eigenvalue problem in the basis of KS states and phonon eigenmodes. In our formalism the electronic component of the polaron is expressed as a coherent superposition of KS states, in close analogy with the solution of the Bethe-Salpeter equation for the calculation of excitons. We demonstrate the power of the methodology by studying polarons in LiF and Li2O2. We show that our method describes both small and large polarons, and seamlessly captures Frohlich-type polar electron-phonon coupling and non-Frohlich coupling to acoustic and optical phonons. To analyze in quantitative terms the electron-phonon coupling mechanisms leading to the formation of polarons, we introduce spectral decompositions similar to the Eliashberg spectral function. We validate our theory using both analytical results and direct calculations on large supercells. This study constitutes a first step toward complete ab initio many-body calculations of polarons in real materials.
Silicate ceramics are of considerable promise as high frequency dielectrics in emerging millimetre wave applications including high bandwidth wireless communication and sensing. In this review, we show how high quality factors and low, thermally stable permittivities arise in ordered silicate structures. On the basis of a large number of existing studies, the dielectric performance of silicate ceramics is comprehensively summarized and presented, showing how microstructure and SiO4 tetrahedral connectivity affect polarizability and dielectric losses. We critically examine the appropriateness of silicate materials in future applications as effective millimetre wave dielectrics with low losses and tuneable permittivities. The development of new soft chemistry based processing routes for silicate dielectric ceramics is identified as being instrumental towards the reduction of processing temperatures, thus enabling silicate ceramics to be co-fired in the production of components functioning in the mm wave regime.
We have developed an efficient and reliable methodology for crystal structure prediction, merging ab initio total-energy calculations and a specifically devised evolutionary algorithm. This method allows one to predict the most stable crystal structure and a number of low-energy metastable structures for a given compound at any P-T conditions without requiring any experimental input. Extremely high success rate has been observed in a few tens of tests done so far, including ionic, covalent, metallic, and molecular structures with up to 40 atoms in the unit cell. We have been able to resolve some important problems in high-pressure crystallography and report a number of new high-pressure crystal structures. Physical reasons for the success of this methodology are discussed.