We investigate the equation of states of the $beta$-polymorph of cyclotetramethylene tetranitramine (HMX) energetic molecular crystal using DFT-D2, a first-principles calculation based on density functional theory (DFT) with van der Waals (vdW) corre
ctions. The atomic structures and equation of states under hydrostatic compressions are studied for pressures up to 100 GPa. We found that the N-N bonds along the minor axis of the ring are more sensitive to the variation of pressure, which indicates that they are potential weak spots in atomic level within a single molecule of $beta$-HMX. Our study suggested that the van der Waals interactions are critically important in modeling this molecular crystal.
We introduced a method to obtain the continuum description of the elastic properties of mono- layer h-BN through ab initio density functional theory. This thermodynamically rigorous contin- uum description of the elastic response is formulated by exp
anding the elastic strain energy density in a Taylor series in strain truncated after the fifth-order term. we obtained a total of fourteen nonzero independent elastic constants for the up to tenth-order tensor. We predicted the pressure dependent second-order elastic moduli. This continuum formulation is suitable for incorporation into the finite element method.
Bandgap engineering by substituting C with B and N atoms in graphene has been shown to be a promising way to improve semiconducting properties of graphene. Such hybridized monolayers consisting of hexagonal BN phases in graphene (h-BNC) have been rec
ently synthesized and char- acterized. In this paper, we present an ab initio density functional theory (DFT)-based study of h-BN domain size effect on band gap of mono-layer h-BNC heterostructures. The atomic structures, electronic band structures, density of states and electron localization functions of five h-BNC config- urations are examined as h-BN concentration ranged from 0 to 100%. We report that the band gap energy of h-BNC can be continuously and quadratically tuned as a function of h-BN concentration.
