Phonon mechanism of the magnetostructural phase transition in MnAs.

Density functional theory was used to study structural and dynamical changes related to the magnetostructural phase transition in MnAs. The soft mode inducing the transition from the high-symmetry hexagonal to the low-symmetry orthorhombic phase was revealed. A giant coupling between the soft mode and magnetic moments was found and its crucial role in the magnetostructural transition was established. The estimated phonon contribution to the total entropy change has the opposite sign to the magnetic entropy change.

DFT study of structure stability and elasticity of wadsleyite II.

The structure and stability properties of wadsleyite II as the new phase of Mg(2)SiO(4) has been studied at high pressure by the DFT method. The pressure range corresponds to the transition zone in the Earth. At zero pressure the calculated lattice parameters of the wadsleyite II structure are a=5.749 Å, b=28.791 Å and c=8.289 Å with the density ρ=3406 kg m(-3). The third order Birch-Murnaghan equation of state has been determined for the structure with isothermal bulk moduli K(T)=160.1 GPa and K(T)'=4.3 at a pressure range up to 50 GPa. The elasticity tensor coefficients C(ij)(P), as well as the compressional and shear wave velocities and their pressure derivatives, have been calculated using the deformation method at a range of pressures up to 25 GPa. The results agree with the experimental data and structure properties of the wadsleyite II model. The properties of the wadsleyite II phase are very close to the wadsleyite phase.

Phonons at the Fe(110) surface.

The in-plane density of phonon states of clean Fe(110) surface was measured separately for the first, second, and further atomic monolayers using nuclear inelastic scattering of synchrotron radiation. The results show that atoms of the first layer vibrate with frequencies significantly lower and amplitudes much larger than those in the bulk, and that vibrational spectra along two perpendicular in-surface directions are different. The vibrations of the second layer are already very close to those of the bulk. The good agreement of the experimental results and the first-principles calculations allows for detailed understanding of the observed phenomena.

Phonons in iron: from the bulk to an epitaxial monolayer.

The confinement of materials in low-dimensional structures has significant impact on propagating excitations like phonons. Using the isotope-specific 57Fe nuclear resonant vibrational spectroscopy we were able to determine elastic and thermodynamic properties of ultrathin Fe films on W(110). With decreasing thickness one observes a significant increase of the mean atomic displacement that goes along with an enhancement of vibrational modes at low energies as compared to the bulk. The analysis reveals that these deviations result from atomic vibrations of the single atomic layers at the two boundaries of the film, while the atoms inside the films vibrate almost bulklike.