No Arabic abstract
Constitutive laws underlie most physical processes in nature. However, learning such equations in heterogeneous solids (e.g., due to phase separation) is challenging. One such relationship is between composition and eigenstrain, which governs the chemo-mechanical expansion in solids. In this work, we developed a generalizable, physically-constrained image-learning framework to algorithmically learn the chemo-mechanical constitutive law at the nanoscale from correlative four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy and X-ray spectro-ptychography images. We demonstrated this approach on Li$_X$FePO$_4$, a technologically-relevant battery positive electrode material. We uncovered the functional form of composition-eigenstrain relation in this two-phase binary solid across the entire composition range (0 $leq$ X $leq$ 1), including inside the thermodynamically-unstable miscibility gap. The learned relation directly validates Vegards law of linear response at the nanoscale. Our physics-constrained data-driven approach directly visualizes the residual strain field (by removing the compositional and coherency strain), which is otherwise impossible to quantify. Heterogeneities in the residual strain arise from misfit dislocations and were independently verified by X-ray diffraction line profile analysis. Our work provides the means to simultaneously quantify chemical expansion, coherency strain and dislocations in battery electrodes, which has implications on rate capabilities and lifetime. Broadly, this work also highlights the potential of integrating correlative microscopy and image learning for extracting material properties and physics.
Using a simple mathematical model, we demonstrate that statistical kinetics of phase-transforming nanoparticles in porous electrodes results in macroscopic non-monotonic transient currents, which could be misinterpreted as the nucleation and growth mechanism by the Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (KJMA) theory. Our model decouples the roles of nucleation and surface reaction in the electrochemically driven phase-transformation process by a special activation rate and the mean particle-filling speed of active nanoparticles, which can be extracted from the responses of porous electrodes to identify the dynamics in single composing nanoparticles.
Searching for performant multiferroic materials attracts general research interests in energy science as they have been increasingly exploited as the conversion media among thermal, electric, magnetic and mechanical energies by using their temperature-dependent ferroic properties. Here we report a material development strategy that guides us to discover a reversible phase-transforming ferroelectric material exhibiting enduring energy harvesting from small temperature differences. The material satisfies the crystallographic compatibility condition between polar and nonpolar phases, which shows only 2.5C thermal hysteresis and high figure of merit. It stably generates 15uA electricity in consecutive thermodynamic cycles in absence of any bias fields. We demonstrate our device to consistently generate 6uA/cm2 current density near 100C over 540 complete phase transformation cycles without any electric and functional degradation. The energy conversion device can light up a LED directly without attaching an external power source. This promising material candidate brings the low-grade waste heat harvesting closer to a practical realization, e.g. small temperature fluctuations around the water boiling point can be considered as a clean energy source.
Quantitative descriptions of the structure-thermal property correlation have been a bottleneck in designing materials with superb thermal properties. In the past decade, the first-principles phonon calculations using density functional theory and the Boltzmann transport equation have become a common practice for predicting the thermal conductivity of new materials. However, first-principles calculations are too costly for high-throughput material screening and multi-scale structural design. First-principles calculations also face several fundamental challenges in modeling thermal transport properties, e.g., of crystalline materials with defects, of amorphous materials, and for materials at high temperatures. In the past five years, machine learning started to play a role in solving these challenges. This review provides a comprehensive summary and discussion on the state-of-the-art, future opportunities, and the remaining challenges in implementing machine learning for studying thermal conductivity. After an introduction to the working principles of machine learning and descriptors of material structures, recent research using machine learning to study thermal transport is discussed. Three major applications of machine learning for predicting thermal properties are discussed. First, machine learning is applied to solve the challenges in modeling phonon transport of crystals with defects, in amorphous materials, and at high temperatures. Machine learning is used to build high-fidelity interatomic potentials to bridge the gap between first-principles calculations and molecular dynamics simulations. Second, machine learning can be used to study the correlation between thermal conductivity and other properties for high-throughput materials screening. Finally, machine learning is a powerful tool for structural design to achieve target thermal conductance or thermal conductivity.
Li$_xTM$O$_2$ (TM={Ni, Co, Mn}) are promising cathodes for Li-ion batteries, whose electrochemical cycling performance is strongly governed by crystal structure and phase stability as a function of Li content at the atomistic scale. Here, we use Li$_x$CoO$_2$ (LCO) as a model system to benchmark a scale-bridging framework that combines density functional theory (DFT) calculations at the atomistic scale with phase field modeling at the continuum scale to understand the impact of phase stability on microstructure evolution. This scale bridging is accomplished by incorporating traditional statistical mechanics methods with integrable deep neural networks, which allows formation energies for specific atomic configurations to be coarse-grained and incorporated in a neural network description of the free energy of the material. The resulting realistic free energy functions enable atomistically informed phase-field simulations. These computational results allow us to make connections to experimental work on LCO cathode degradation as a function of temperature, morphology and particle size.
A triplon refers to a fictitious particle that carries angular momentum $S = 1$ corresponding to the elementary excitation in a broad class of quantum dimerized spin systems. Such systems without magnetic order have long been studied as a testing ground for quantum properties of spins. Although triplons have been found to play a central role in thermal and magnetic properties in dimerized magnets with singlet correlation, a spin angular momentum flow carried by triplons, a triplon current, has not been detected yet. Here we report spin Seebeck effects induced by a triplon current: triplon spin Seebeck effect, using a spin-Peierls system CuGeO$_3$. The result shows that the heating-driven triplon transport induces spin current whose sign is positive, opposite to the spin-wave cases in magnets. The triplon spin Seebeck effect persists far below the spin-Peierls transition temperature, being consistent with a theoretical calculation for triplon spin Seebeck effects.