Magnetism in AV_{3}Sb_{5} (A=Cs, Rb, and K): Origin and Consequences for the Strongly Correlated Phases.

The V-based kagome systems AV_{3}Sb_{5} (A=Cs, Rb, and K) are unique by virtue of the intricate interplay of nontrivial electronic structure, topology, and intriguing fermiology, rendering them to be a playground of many mutually dependent exotic phases like charge-order and superconductivity. Despite numerous recent studies, the interconnection of magnetism and other complex collective phenomena in these systems has yet not arrived at any conclusion. Using first-principles tools, we demonstrate that their electronic structures, complex fermiologies and phonon dispersions are strongly influenced by the interplay of dynamic electron correlations, nontrivial spin-polarization and spin-orbit coupling. An investigation of the first-principles-derived intersite magnetic exchanges with the complementary analysis of q dependence of the electronic response functions and the electron-phonon coupling indicate that the system conforms as a frustrated spin cluster, where the occurrence of the charge-order phase is intimately related to the mechanism of electron-phonon coupling, rather than the Fermi-surface nesting.

Localized versus itinerant character of 4f-states in cerium oxides.

The electronic structure of cerium oxide is investigated here using a combination of ab initio one-electron theory and elements from many-body physics, with emphasis on the nature of the 4f electron shell of cerium ions. We propose to use the hybridization function as a convenient measure for the degree of localization of the 4f shell of this material, and observe that changing the oxidation state is related to distinct changes in the hybridization between the 4f shell and ligand states. The theory reveals that CeO2 has essentially itinerant 4f states, and that in the least oxidized form of ceria, Ce2O3, the 4f states are almost (but not fully) localized. This conclusion is supported by additional calculations based on a combination of density functional theory and dynamical mean field theory. Most importantly, our model points to the fact that diffusion of oxygen vacancies in cerium oxide may be seen as polaron hopping, involving a correlated 4f electron cloud, which is located primarily on Ce ions of several atomic shells surrounding the vacancy.

Element- and momentum-resolved electronic structure of the dilute magnetic semiconductor manganese doped gallium arsenide.

The dilute magnetic semiconductors have promise in spin-based electronics applications due to their potential for ferromagnetic order at room temperature, and various unique switching and spin-dependent conductivity properties. However, the precise mechanism by which the transition-metal doping produces ferromagnetism has been controversial. Here we have studied a dilute magnetic semiconductor (5% manganese-doped gallium arsenide) with Bragg-reflection standing-wave hard X-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, and resolved its electronic structure into element- and momentum- resolved components. The measured valence band intensities have been projected into element-resolved components using analogous energy scans of Ga 3d, Mn 2p, and As 3d core levels, with results in excellent agreement with element-projected Bloch spectral functions and clarification of the electronic structure of this prototypical material. This technique should be broadly applicable to other multi-element materials.

A new 2D monolayer BiXene, M2C (M = Mo, Tc, Os).

The existence of BiXenes, a new family of 2D monolayers, is hereby predicted. Theoretically, BiXenes have 1H symmetry (P6[combining macron]m2) and can be formed from the 4d/5d binary carbides. As the name suggests, they are close relatives of MXenes, which instead have 1T symmetry (P3[combining macron]m1). The newly found BiXenes, as well as some new MXenes, are shown to have formation energies close to that of germanene, which suggests that these materials should be possible to be synthesised. Among them, we illustrate that 1H-Tc2C and 1T-Mo2C are dynamically stable at 0 K, while 1H-Mo2C, 1T-Tc2C, 1H-Os2C, and 1T-Rh2C are likely to be stabilised via strain or temperature. In addition, the nature of the chemical bonding is analysed, emphasizing that the covalency between the transition metal ions and carbon is much stronger in BiXenes than in MXenes. The emergence of BiXenes can not only open up a new era of conducting 2D monolayers, but also provide good candidates for carrier materials aimed at energy storage and spintronic devices that have already been unveiled in MXenes.

Reproducibility in density functional theory calculations of solids.

The widespread popularity of density functional theory has given rise to an extensive range of dedicated codes for predicting molecular and crystalline properties. However, each code implements the formalism in a different way, raising questions about the reproducibility of such predictions. We report the results of a community-wide effort that compared 15 solid-state codes, using 40 different potentials or basis set types, to assess the quality of the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof equations of state for 71 elemental crystals. We conclude that predictions from recent codes and pseudopotentials agree very well, with pairwise differences that are comparable to those between different high-precision experiments. Older methods, however, have less precise agreement. Our benchmark provides a framework for users and developers to document the precision of new applications and methodological improvements.

Polar Order and Frustrated Antiferromagnetism in Perovskite Pb2MnWO6 Single Crystals.

Single crystals of the multiferroic double-perovskite Pb2MnWO6 have been synthesized and their structural, thermal, magnetic and dielectric properties studied in detail. Pure perovskite-phase formation and stoichiometric chemical composition of the as-grown crystals are confirmed by X-ray single-crystal and powder diffraction techniques as well as energy-dispersive X-ray and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Detailed structural analyses reveal that the crystals experience a structural phase transition from the cubic space group (s.g.) Fm3̅m to an orthorhombic structure in s.g. Pn21a at about 460 K. Dielectric data suggest that a ferrielectric phase transition takes place at that same temperature, in contrast to earlier results on polycrystalline samples, which reported a transition to s.g. Pnma and an antiferroelectric low-temperature phase. Magnetic susceptibility measurements indicate that a frustrated antiferromagnetic phase emerges below 8 K. Density functional theory based calculations confirm that the cationic order between Mn and W is favorable. The lowest total energy was found for an antiferromagnetically ordered state. However, analyses of the calculated exchange parameters revealed strongly competing antiferromagnetic interactions. The large distance between the magnetic atoms, together with magnetic frustration, is shown to be the main reason for the low value of the ordering temperature observed experimentally. We discuss the structure-property relationships in Pb2MnWO6 and compare these observations to reported results on related Pb2BWO6 perovskites with different B cations.

Magnetism and exchange interaction of small rare-earth clusters; Tb as a representative.

Here we follow, both experimentally and theoretically, the development of magnetism in Tb clusters from the atomic limit, adding one atom at a time. The exchange interaction is, surprisingly, observed to drastically increase compared to that of bulk, and to exhibit irregular oscillations as a function of the interatomic distance. From electronic structure theory we find that the theoretical magnetic moments oscillate with cluster size in exact agreement with experimental data. Unlike the bulk, the oscillation is not caused by the RKKY mechanism. Instead, the inter-atomic exchange is shown to be driven by a competition between wave-function overlap of the 5d shell and the on-site exchange interaction, which leads to a competition between ferromagnetic double-exchange and antiferromagnetic super-exchange. This understanding opens up new ways to tune the magnetic properties of rare-earth based magnets with nano-sized building blocks.

Gluing together metallic and covalent layers to form Ru2C under ambient conditions.

Ru2C has recently been synthesised at high pressure and high temperature, and was assumed to have a structure with space group P3̅m1. However, subsequent theoretical work has revealed that this structure is unstable under ambient conditions, which motivated us to look for the stable structure. In this work, we explore the structures of Ru2C by using an unbiased swarm structure searching algorithm. The structures with R3m and R3̅m symmetries have been found to be lower in energy than the P3̅m1 structure, at the same time being dynamically stable under ambient conditions. These layered structures consist of alternating Ru bilayers and C monolayers in the R3m structure, and alternating Ru tetra-layers and C bilayers in the R3̅m structure. The C layers are more evenly distributed and more covalently bound to the Ru layers in the R3m structure than in the R3̅m structure. Instead, in the R3̅m structure there exists more Ru-Ru metallic bonding, which has a crucial role in diminishing the hardness of this material. Our findings should stimulate further explorations of the structures and properties of the heavy transition metal carbides and nitrides, potentially leading to industrial applications.

Electronic entanglement in late transition metal oxides.

We present a study of the entanglement in the electronic structure of the late transition metal monoxides--MnO, FeO, CoO, and NiO--obtained by means of density-functional theory in the local density approximation combined with dynamical mean-field theory. The impurity problem is solved through exact diagonalization, which grants full access to the thermally mixed many-body ground state density operator. The quality of the electronic structure is affirmed through a direct comparison between the calculated electronic excitation spectrum and photoemission experiments. Our treatment allows for a quantitative investigation of the entanglement in the electronic structure. Two main sources of entanglement are explicitly resolved through the use of a fidelity based geometrical entanglement measure, and additional information is gained from a complementary entropic entanglement measure. We show that the interplay of crystal field effects and Coulomb interaction causes the entanglement in CoO to take a particularly intricate form.