Crystal structure prediction of magnetic materials.

We present a methodology to predict magnetic systems using ab initio methods. By employing crystal structure method and spin-polarized calculations, we explore the relation between crystalline structures and their magnetic properties. In this work, testbed cases of transition metal alloys (FeCr, FeMn, FeCo and FeNi) are study in the ferromagnetic case. We find soft-magnetic properties for FeCr, FeMn while for FeCo and FeNi hard-magnetic are predicted. In particular, for the family of FeNi, a candidate structure with energy lower than the tetrataenite was found. The structure has a saturation magnetization (M s) of 1.2 MA m-1, magnetic anisotropy energy (MAE) above 1200 kJ m-3 and hardness value close to 1. Theoretically, this system made of abundant elements could be the right candidate for permanent magnet applications. Comparing with the state-of-the-art (Nd2Fe14B) hard-magnet, (M s of 1.28 MA m-1 and MAE of 4900 kJ m-3) is appealing to explore this low energy polymorph of FeNi further. Considering the relatively limited number of magnets, predicting a new system may open routes for free rare-earth magnets. Furthermore, the use of the computational algorithm as the one presented in this work, hold promises in this field for which in near future improvements will allow to study numerous complex systems, larger simulations cells and tackled long-range antiferromagnetic cases.

Quantum crystal structure in the 250-kelvin superconducting lanthanum hydride.

The discovery of superconductivity at 200 kelvin in the hydrogen sulfide system at high pressures1 demonstrated the potential of hydrogen-rich materials as high-temperature superconductors. Recent theoretical predictions of rare-earth hydrides with hydrogen cages2,3 and the subsequent synthesis of LaH10 with a superconducting critical temperature (Tc) of 250 kelvin4,5 have placed these materials on the verge of achieving the long-standing goal of room-temperature superconductivity. Electrical and X-ray diffraction measurements have revealed a weakly pressure-dependent Tc for LaH10 between 137 and 218 gigapascals in a structure that has a face-centred cubic arrangement of lanthanum atoms5. Here we show that quantum atomic fluctuations stabilize a highly symmetrical [Formula: see text] crystal structure over this pressure range. The structure is consistent with experimental findings and has a very large electron-phonon coupling constant of 3.5. Although ab initio classical calculations predict that this [Formula: see text] structure undergoes distortion at pressures below 230 gigapascals2,3, yielding a complex energy landscape, the inclusion of quantum effects suggests that it is the true ground-state structure. The agreement between the calculated and experimental Tc values further indicates that this phase is responsible for the superconductivity observed at 250 kelvin. The relevance of quantum fluctuations calls into question many of the crystal structure predictions that have been made for hydrides within a classical approach and that currently guide the experimental quest for room-temperature superconductivity6-8. Furthermore, we find that quantum effects are crucial for the stabilization of solids with high electron-phonon coupling constants that could otherwise be destabilized by the large electron-phonon interaction9, thus reducing the pressures required for their synthesis.

Computational acceleration of prospective dopant discovery in cuprous iodide.

The zinc blende (γ) phase of copper iodide holds the record hole conductivity for intrinsic transparent p-type semiconductors. In this work, we employ a high-throughput approach to systematically explore strategies for enhancing γ-CuI further by impurity incorporation. Our objectives are not only to find a practical approach to increase the hole conductivity in CuI thin films, but also to explore the possibility for ambivalent doping. In total 64 chemical elements were investigated as possible substitutionals on either the copper or the iodine site. All chalcogen elements were found to display acceptor character when substituting iodine, with sulfur and selenium significantly enhancing carrier concentrations produced by the native VCu defects under conditions most favorable for impurity incorporation. Furthermore, eight impurities suitable for n-type doping were discovered. Unfortunately, our work also reveals that donor doping is hindered by compensating native defects, making ambipolar doping unlikely. Finally, we investigated how the presence of impurities influences the optical properties. In the majority of the interesting cases, we found no deep states in the band-gap, showing that CuI remains transparent upon doping.

New Route for "Cold-Passivation" of Defects in Tin-Based Oxides.

Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) are essential in technologies coupling light and electricity. For Sn-based TCOs, oxygen deficiencies and undercoordinated Sn atoms result in an extended density of states below the conduction band edge. Although shallow states provide free carriers necessary for electrical conductivity, deeper states inside the band gap are detrimental to transparency. In zinc tin oxide (ZTO), the overall optoelectronic properties can be improved by defect passivation via annealing at high temperatures. Yet, the high thermal budget associated with such treatment is incompatible with many applications. Here, we demonstrate an alternative, low-temperature passivation method, which relies on cosputtering Sn-based TCOs with silicon dioxide (SiO2). Using amorphous ZTO and amorphous/polycrystalline tin dioxide (SnO2) as representative cases, we demonstrate through optoelectronic characterization and density functional theory simulations that the SiO2 contribution is twofold. First, oxygen from SiO2 passivates the oxygen deficiencies that form deep defects in SnO2 and ZTO. Second, the ionization energy of the remaining deep defect centers is lowered by the presence of silicon atoms. Remarkably, we find that these ionized states do not contribute to sub-gap absorptance. This simple passivation scheme significantly improves the optical properties without affecting the electrical conductivity, hence overcoming the known transparency-conductivity trade-off in Sn-based TCOs.

Pressure-Tuneable Visible-Range Band Gap in the Ionic Spinel Tin Nitride.

The application of pressure allows systematic tuning of the charge density of a material cleanly, that is, without changes to the chemical composition via dopants, and exploratory high-pressure experiments can inform the design of bulk syntheses of materials that benefit from their properties under compression. The electronic and structural response of semiconducting tin nitride Sn3 N4 under compression is now reported. A continuous opening of the optical band gap was observed from 1.3 eV to 3.0 eV over a range of 100 GPa, a 540 nm blue-shift spanning the entire visible spectrum. The pressure-mediated band gap opening is general to this material across numerous high-density polymorphs, implicating the predominant ionic bonding in the material as the cause. The rate of decompression to ambient conditions permits access to recoverable metastable states with varying band gaps energies, opening the possibility of pressure-tuneable electronic properties for future applications.

Affordable and accurate large-scale hybrid-functional calculations on GPU-accelerated supercomputers.

Performing high accuracy hybrid functional calculations for condensed matter systems containing a large number of atoms is at present computationally very demanding or even out of reach if high quality basis sets are used. We present a highly optimized multiple graphics processing unit implementation of the exact exchange operator which allows one to perform fast hybrid functional density-functional theory (DFT) calculations with systematic basis sets without additional approximations for up to a thousand atoms. With this method hybrid DFT calculations of high quality become accessible on state-of-the-art supercomputers within a time-to-solution that is of the same order of magnitude as traditional semilocal-GGA functionals. The method is implemented in a portable open-source library.

Emergence of superconductivity in doped H2O ice at high pressure.

We investigate the possibility of achieving high-temperature superconductivity in hydrides under pressure by inducing metallization of otherwise insulating phases through doping, a path previously used to render standard semiconductors superconducting at ambient pressure. Following this idea, we study H2O, one of the most abundant and well-studied substances, we identify nitrogen as the most likely and promising substitution/dopant. We show that for realistic levels of doping of a few percent, the phase X of ice becomes superconducting with a critical temperature of about 60 K at 150 GPa. In view of the vast number of hydrides that are strongly covalent bonded, but that remain insulating up to rather large pressures, our results open a series of new possibilities in the quest for novel high-temperature superconductors.

The Elephant in the Room of Density Functional Theory Calculations.

Using multiwavelets, we have obtained total energies and corresponding atomization energies for the GGA-PBE and hybrid-PBE0 density functionals for a test set of 211 molecules with an unprecedented and guaranteed µHartree accuracy. These quasi-exact references allow us to quantify the accuracy of standard all-electron basis sets that are believed to be highly accurate for molecules, such as Gaussian-type orbitals (GTOs), all-electron numeric atom-centered orbitals (NAOs), and full-potential augmented plane wave (APW) methods. We show that NAOs are able to achieve the so-called chemical accuracy (1 kcal/mol) for the typical basis set sizes used in applications, for both total and atomization energies. For GTOs, a triple-ζ quality basis has mean errors of ∼10 kcal/mol in total energies, while chemical accuracy is almost reached for a quintuple-ζ basis. Due to systematic error cancellations, atomization energy errors are reduced by almost an order of magnitude, placing chemical accuracy within reach also for medium to large GTO bases, albeit with significant outliers. In order to check the accuracy of the computed densities, we have also investigated the dipole moments, where in general only the largest NAO and GTO bases are able to yield errors below 0.01 D. The observed errors are similar across the different functionals considered here.

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.

Investigation of new phases in the Ba-Si phase diagram under high pressure using ab initio structural search.

Barium silicides are versatile materials that have attracted attention for a variety of applications in electronics and optoelectronics. Using an unbiased structural search based on a particle-swarm optimization algorithm combined with density functional theory calculations, we investigate systematically the ground-state phase stability and the structural diversity of Ba-Si binaries under high pressure. The phase diagram turns out to be quite intricate, with several compositions stabilizing/destabilizing as a function of pressure. In particular, we identify novel phases of BaSi, BaSi2, BaSi3, and BaSi5 that might be synthesizable experimentally over a wide range of pressures. Our results not only clarify and complete the previously known structural phase diagram, but also provide new insights for understanding the Ba-Si binary system.

Comment on "Towards direct-gap silicon phases by the inverse band structure design approach".

A Comment on the Letter by H. J. Xiang, B. Huang, E. Kan, S.-H. Wei, and X. G. Gong, [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 118702 (2013).

Novel structural motifs in low energy phases of LiAlH4.

We identify a class of novel low energy phases of the hydrogen storage material LiAlH4 by using the ab initio minima hopping crystal structure prediction method. These phases are, unlike previous predictions and known structures of similar materials, characterized by polymeric networks consisting of Al atoms interlinked with H atoms. The most stable structure is a layered ionic crystal with P21/c symmetry, and it has lower free energy than the previously reported structure over a wide range of temperatures. Furthermore, we carry out x-ray diffraction, phonon, and GW band-structure analysis in order to characterize this phase. Its experimental synthesis would have profound implications for the study of dehydrogenation and rehydrogenation processes and the stability problem of LiAlH4 for hydrogen storage applications.

p doping in expanded phases of ZnO: an ab initio study.

The issue of p doping in nanostructured cagelike ZnO is investigated by state-of-the-art calculations. Our study is focused on one prototypical structure, namely, sodalite, for which we show that p-type doping is possible for elements of the V, VI, and VII columns of the periodic table. However, some dopants tend to form dimers, thus impairing the stability of this kind of doping. This difference of behavior is discussed, and two criteria are proposed to ensure stable p doping.

High-pressure structures of disilane and their superconducting properties.

A systematic ab initio search for low-enthalpy phases of disilane (Si2H6) at high pressures was performed based on the minima hopping method. We found a novel metallic phase of disilane with Cmcm symmetry, which is enthalpically more favorable than the recently proposed structures of disilane up to 280 GPa, but revealing compositional instability below 190 GPa. The Cmcm phase has a moderate electron-phonon coupling yielding a superconducting transition temperature T(c) of around 20 K at 100 GPa, decreasing to 13 K at 220 GPa. These values are significantly smaller than previously predicted T(c))s for disilane at equivalent pressure. This shows that similar but different crystalline structures of a material can result in dramatically different T(c)'s and stresses the need for a systematic search for a crystalline ground state.

Crystal structure of cold compressed graphite.

Through a systematic structural search we found an allotrope of carbon with Cmmm symmetry which we predict to be more stable than graphite for pressures above 10 GPa. This material, which we refer to as Z-carbon, is formed by pure sp(3) bonds and it provides an explanation to several features in experimental x-ray diffraction and Raman spectra of graphite under pressure. The transition from graphite to Z-carbon can occur through simple sliding and buckling of graphene sheets. Our calculations predict that Z-carbon is a transparent wide band-gap semiconductor with a hardness comparable to diamond.

Enhancing the superconducting transition temperature of BaSi2 by structural tuning.

We present a joint experimental and theoretical study of the superconducting phase of the layered binary silicide BaSi(2). Compared with the AlB(2) structure of graphite or diboridelike superconductors, in the hexagonal structure of binary silicides the sp(3) arrangement of silicon atoms leads to corrugated sheets. Through a high-pressure synthesis procedure we are able to modify the buckling of these sheets, enhancing the superconducting transition temperature from 6 to 8.9 K when the silicon planes flatten out. By performing ab initio calculations based on density-functional theory we explain how the electronic and phonon properties are strongly affected by changes in the buckling. This mechanism is likely present in other intercalated layered superconductors, opening the way to the tuning of superconductivity through the control of internal structural parameters.