Pressure and temperature dependentab-initioquasi-harmonic thermoelastic properties of tungsten.

We present theab-initiotemperature and pressure dependent thermoelastic properties of body-centered cubic tungsten. The temperature dependent quasi-harmonic elastic constants (ECs) are computed at several reference volumes including both the phonon and the electronic excitations contribution to the free energy and interpolated at different temperatures and pressures. Good agreement with the experimental ECs on a single crystal at ambient pressure is found. The pressure and temperature dependence of the shear sound velocity measured on polycrystalline tungsten by Qiet alis also in agreement with theory. Some discrepancies are found instead for the compressional velocity at high temperature and this is attributed to the temperature derivative of the bulk modulus, higher in theory than in experiment. These conclusions are reached both by PBE and by PBEsol functionals. The two give elastic properties with a similar pressure and temperature dependence although the latter is closer to experiment at 0 K.

Finite-temperature atomic relaxations: Effect on the temperature-dependent C44 elastic constants of Si and BAs.

The effect of atomic relaxations on the temperature-dependent elastic constants (TDECs) is usually taken into account at zero temperature by the minimization of the total energy at each strain. In this paper, we investigate the order of magnitude of this approximation on a paradigmatic example: the C44 elastic constant of diamond and zincblende materials. We estimate the effect of finite-temperature atomic relaxations within the quasi-harmonic approximation by computing ab initio the internal strain tensor from the second derivatives of the Helmholtz free-energy with respect to strain and atomic displacements. We apply our approach to Si and BAs and find a visible difference between the softening of the TDECs computed with the zero-temperature and finite-temperature atomic relaxations. In Si, the softening of C44 passes from 8.6% to 4.5%, between T = 0 K and T = 1200 K. In BAs, it passes from 8% to 7%, in the same range of temperatures. Finally, from the computed elastic constant corrections, we derive the temperature-dependent Kleinman parameter, which is usually measured in experiments.

Quasi-harmonic thermoelasticity of palladium, platinum, copper, and gold from first principles.

We calculate the temperature-dependent elastic constants (ECs) of palladium, platinum, copper and gold within the quasi-harmonic approximation using a first-principles approach and evaluating numerically the second derivatives of the Helmholtz free-energy with respect to strain at the minimum of the free-energy itself. We find an overall good agreement with the experimental data although the anomalies of palladium and platinum reported at room temperature are not reproduced. The contribution of electronic excitations is also investigated: we find that it is non-negligible for theC44ECs of palladium and platinum while it is irrelevant in the other cases. Its effect is not sufficient to explain the details of the anomalies found by experiments, not even when, in the case of platinum, we take into account the electron-phonon interaction. Lastly, the effect of the exchange and correlation functional is addressed and it is found that it is important atT= 0 K, while all functionals give similar temperature dependencies.

Temperature-dependent atomic B factor: an ab initio calculation.

The Debye-Waller factor explains the temperature dependence of the intensities of X-ray or neutron diffraction peaks. It is defined in terms of the B matrix whose elements Bαß are mean-square atomic displacements in different directions. These quantities, introduced in several contexts, account for the effects of temperature and quantum fluctuations on the lattice dynamics. This paper presents an implementation of the B factor (8π2Bαß) in the thermo_pw software, a driver of Quantum ESPRESSO routines that provides several thermodynamic properties of materials. The B factor can be calculated from the ab initio phonon frequencies and displacements or can be estimated, although less accurately, from the elastic constants, using the Debye model. The B factors are computed for a few elemental crystals: silicon, ruthenium, magnesium and cadmium; the harmonic approximation at fixed geometry is compared with the quasi-harmonic approximation where the B factors are calculated accounting for thermal expansion. The results are compared with the available experimental data.

Lattice dynamics and thermophysical properties of h.c.p. Os and Ru from the quasi-harmonic approximation.

We report first-principles phonon frequencies and anharmonic thermodynamic properties of h.c.p. Os and Ru calculated within the quasi-harmonic approximation, including Grüneisen parameters, temperature-dependent lattice parameters, thermal expansion, and isobaric heat capacity. We discuss the differences between a full treatment of anisotropy and a simplified approach with a constant [Formula: see text] ratio. The results are systematically compared with the available theoretical and experimental data and an overall satisfactory agreement is obtained.

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.

Elastic constants of beryllium: a first-principles investigation.

We apply several recently introduced projector-augmented wave, ultrasoft, and norm-conserving pseudopotentials (PPs) to the calculation of the elastic constants of beryllium and compare the results with previous theory and experiments. We discuss how the elastic constants depend on the Brillouin zone integration, the PP type, and the exchange and correlation functional. We find that although in percentage terms the elastic constants of beryllium depend on the PPs more than the crystal parameters or the bulk moduli, the differences between the local density approximation (LDA) and the Perdew, Burke, and Ernzerhof (PBE) generalized-gradient approximation are larger than the PP differences. The LDA overestimates compared to experiments, while the PBE values are higher than those of experiments but show a much better agreement. The PBEsol functional gives values that are slightly higher than those from PBE, with differences comparable to the PP uncertainty. We propose a simple formula to rationalize the internal relaxations in hexagonal close-packed crystals and show that Be relaxations are in reasonable agreement with this formula. The effects of internal relaxations on the values of C11 and C12 amount to a few per cent of C11, but up to 50% of C12.

Reliability evaluation of thermophysical properties from first-principles calculations.

Thermophysical properties, such as heat capacity, bulk modulus and thermal expansion, are of great importance for many technological applications and are traditionally determined experimentally. With the rapid development of computational methods, however, first-principles computed temperature-dependent data are nowadays accessible. We evaluate various computational realizations of such data in comparison to the experimental scatter. The work is focussed on the impact of different first-principles codes (QUANTUM ESPRESSO and VASP), pseudopotentials (ultrasoft and projector augmented wave) as well as phonon determination methods (linear response and direct force constant method) on these properties. Based on the analysis of data for two pure elements, Cr and Ni, consequences for the reliability of temperature-dependent first-principles data in computational thermodynamics are discussed.

Ab initio phonon dispersions of transition and noble metals: effects of the exchange and correlation functional.

We compare the performance of the Wu and Cohen (WC, 2006 Phys. Rev. B 73 235116) and of the PBEsol (2008 Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 136406) exchange and correlation functionals on the phonon dispersions of face-centered cubic metals copper, silver, gold, nickel, palladium, platinum, rhodium, and iridium. The WC and the PBEsol frequencies are found to be close to each other and intermediate between the local density approximation (LDA) and the Perdew, Burke, and Ernzerhof (PBE) result (1996 Phys. Rev. Lett. 77 3865). In copper, silver, palladium, platinum, and rhodium, the WC and PBEsol frequencies match the experimental inelastic neutron scattering data better than the LDA or PBE. In nickel, gold, and iridium, PBE (for nickel) or LDA (for gold and iridium) remain the best functionals among these four possibilities.

Ultrasoft pseudopotentials and projector augmented-wave data sets: application to diatomic molecules.

We test several ultrasoft pseudopotentials (US-PPs) and projector augmented-wave (PAW) data sets, calculating the bond lengths, the atomization energies and the frequencies of the vibrational stretch modes of various diatomic molecules. The US-PPs and the PAW data sets are constructed with the same recipe and using the local density approximation or the Perdew, Burke and Ernzerhof generalized gradient approximation for the exchange and correlation energies. We study the dimers H(2), N(2), O(2), F(2), Al(2), Si(2), P(2), S(2) and Cl(2) and several monohydrides, carbides, nitrides and oxides of boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, iron and nickel. We find that US-PPs and PAW data sets constructed with the same parameters provide almost equivalent results for the bond lengths and the vibrational stretch frequencies while, for some molecules, the PAW method is superior to the US-PP method for the calculation of the atomization energies. Our geometries and vibrational frequencies are compared with the results present in the literature and obtained by localized basis sets. It is found that the agreement is very good, with discrepancies comparable to those due to the use of different localized basis sets.

QUANTUM ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials.

QUANTUM ESPRESSO is an integrated suite of computer codes for electronic-structure calculations and materials modeling, based on density-functional theory, plane waves, and pseudopotentials (norm-conserving, ultrasoft, and projector-augmented wave). The acronym ESPRESSO stands for opEn Source Package for Research in Electronic Structure, Simulation, and Optimization. It is freely available to researchers around the world under the terms of the GNU General Public License. QUANTUM ESPRESSO builds upon newly-restructured electronic-structure codes that have been developed and tested by some of the original authors of novel electronic-structure algorithms and applied in the last twenty years by some of the leading materials modeling groups worldwide. Innovation and efficiency are still its main focus, with special attention paid to massively parallel architectures, and a great effort being devoted to user friendliness. QUANTUM ESPRESSO is evolving towards a distribution of independent and interoperable codes in the spirit of an open-source project, where researchers active in the field of electronic-structure calculations are encouraged to participate in the project by contributing their own codes or by implementing their own ideas into existing codes.

DFT study of a weakly pi-bonded C2H4 on oxygen-covered Ag(100).

The coadsorption of ethylene, C2H4, and atomic oxygen on Ag(100) was studied using density-functional theory. As for the adsorption of oxygen alone, the on-surface hollow sites are predicted to be the most stable adsorption sites at low coverage (< or =1/2 ML). Above this coverage, mixed on-surface + subsurface oxygen configurations become more stable. The binding of ethylene to the clean Ag(100) is weak and little affected by oxygen when it is adsorbed on-surface. On the other hand, we find that the adsorption energy of C2H4 may increase considerably when oxygen is adsorbed into subsurface sites. Our results indicate that the increased reactivity of surface Ag atoms is because of their decreased coordination due to the push out effect of oxygen underneath, more than to their oxidation.

Spin-flop ordering from frustrated ferro- and antiferromagnetic interactions: a combined theoretical and experimental study of a Mn/Fe(100) monolayer.

The occurrence of a noncollinear magnetic structure at a Mn monolayer grown epitaxially on Fe(100) is predicted theoretically, using spinor density-functional theory, and observed experimentally, using x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and linear dichroism (XMLD) spectroscopies. The combined use of XMCD and XMLD at the Mn-absorption edge allows us to assess the existence of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic order at the interface, and also to determine the moment orientations with element specificity. The experimental results thus obtained are in excellent agreement with the magnetic structure determined theoretically.

Electric fields with ultrasoft pseudo-potentials: applications to benzene and anthracene.

We present density-functional perturbation theory for electric field perturbations and ultra-soft pseudopotentials. Applications to benzene and anthracene molecules and surfaces are reported as examples. We point out several issues concerning the evaluation of the polarizability of molecules and slabs with periodic boundary conditions.