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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 541 records · Page 30
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Electronic and structural properties at the interface between iron-phthalocyanine and Cu(110)

Electronic structure and adsorption geometry of Iron-Phthalocyanine (FePc) adsorbed on Cu(110) were investigated by using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) and first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The emission features α, β, γ, and δ originating from the FePc molecules in UPS spectra are located at 3.42, 5.04, 7.36, and 10.28 eV below Fermi level. The feature α is mostly deriving from Fe 3d orbital with some contributions from C 2p orbital. A considerable charge transfer from the Cu substrate to the Fe 3d orbital occurs upon the adsorption of FePc molecules. The angle-resolved UPS measurements indicate that FePc molecules adopt lying-down configurations with their molecular plane nearly parallel to the Cu(110) substrate at monolayer stage. In combination with the DFT calculations, the adsorption structure is determined to be that FePc molecule adsorbs on the top site of Cu(110) with an angle of 45° between the lobes of FePc and the [11{sup ¯}0] azimuth of the substrate.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2015

Tuning the electronic band gap of graphene by oxidation

Using plane wave pseudo potential density functional theory, we studied the electronic properties of graphene with different C:O ratio. In this work, we discussed the changes that occur in electronic band structure of graphene functionalized with different amount of epoxy group. Electronic band gap depends on C:O ratio in graphene oxide containing epoxy group. The present work will have its implication for making devices with tunable electronic properties by oxidizing graphene.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2018

Atomic and Electronic Structure of 3C-SiC(111)-(2√3×2√3)-R30° Surface

The theoretical studies and ab initio calculations have been carried out for the first time for atomic and electronic structure of four variants of 3C-SiC(111)-(2√3×2√3)-R30° surface with Si- terminated surface: initial, relaxed, reconstructed, and relaxed after reconstruction. The surface was simulated in the layered superlattice approximation by a system of thin films (slabs) with a thickness of 12 atomic layers separated by vacuum gaps of ~16 Å. In order to close the dangling carbon bonds, the opposite side of the film was complemented with 12 atoms of hydrogen. Ab initio calculations were performed by means of QUANTUM ESPRESSO program based on the density functional theory. It is shown that the reconstruction makes the atomic layers split. Our previous works and experimental data show that these splits are observed at reconstructions of surface (111) in crystals with the sphalerite structure. The band structures of four alternative slabs are calculated and analyzed. Total and layer-by-layer valence electron state densities are calculated for four top layers. It is shown that the real surface has a metallic conductivity.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2016

Ferromagnetism in half-metallic quaternary FeVTiAl Heusler compound

The electronic structure and magnetic properties of FeVTiAl quaternary Heusler alloy have been investigated within the density functional theory framework. The material was found completely spin-polarized half-metallic Ferromagnet in the ground state with F-43m structure. The structural stability was further confirmed by calculating different elastic constants in the cubic phase. Present study predicts an energy band gap of 0.72 eV calculated in localized minority spin channel at an equilibrium lattice parameter of 6.0Å. The calculated total spin magnetic moment of 2 µ{sub B}/f.u. is in agreement with the Slater-Pauling rule for full Heusler alloys.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Origin of the Bloch-type polarization components at the 180° domain walls in ferroelectric PbTiO{sub 3}

Determination of atomic and electronic structures of ferroelectric domain walls is crucial to understand and explore their unusual properties. Using first-principles calculations based on the density functional theory, we explored the atomic and electronic structures of 180° domain walls in PbTiO{sub 3}, in order to understand the origin of Bloch-type polarization components. It is found that Bloch-type polarization components originate from the large displacements of Pb atoms and the Pb-O hybridization at the domain walls. The development of Bloch-type polarization components significantly reduce the domain wall energies and change the Peierls barriers of domain wall motion in different orientations.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Evaluation of the excitation spectra with diffusion Monte Carlo on an auxiliary bosonic ground state

We aim to improve upon the variational Monte Carlo (VMC) approach for excitations replacing the Jastrow factor by an auxiliary bosonic (AB) ground state and multiplying it by a fermionic component factor. The instantaneous change in imaginary time of an arbitrary excitation in the original interacting fermionic system is obtained by measuring observables via the ground-state distribution of walkers of an AB system that is subject to an auxiliary effective potential. The effective potential is used to (i) drive the AB system’s ground-state configuration space toward the configuration space of the excitations of the original fermionic system and (ii) subtract from a diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) calculation contributions that can be included in conventional approximations, such as mean-field and configuration interaction (CI) methods. In this novel approach, the AB ground state is treated statistically in DMC, whereas the fermionic component of the original system is expanded in a basis. The excitation energies of the fermionic eigenstates are obtained by sampling a fermion–boson coupling term on the AB ground state. We show that this approach can take advantage of and correct for approximate eigenstates obtained via mean-field calculations or truncated interactions. We demonstrate that the AB ground-state factor incorporates the correlations missed by standard Jastrow factors, further reducing basis truncation errors. Relevant parts of the theory have been tested in soluble model systems and exhibit excellent agreement with exact analytical data and CI and VMC approaches. In particular, for limited basis set expansions and sufficient statistics, AB approaches outperform CI and VMC in terms of basis size for the same systems. The implementation of this method in current codes, despite being demanding, will be facilitated by reusing procedures already developed for calculating ground-state properties with DMC and excitations with VMC.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2014

Substrate induced modulation of electronic, magnetic and chemical properties of MoSe{sub 2} monolayer

Monolayer of MoSe{sub 2}, having a typical direct band gap of ∼1.5 eV, is a promising material for optoelectronic and solar cell applications. When this 2D semiconductor is supported on transition metal substrates, such as Ni(111) and Cu(111), its electronic structure gets modulated. First principles density functional investigation shows the appearance of de-localized mid-gap states in the density of states. The work function of the semiconductor overlayer gets modified considerably, indicating n-type doping caused by the metal contacts. The charge transfer across the metal-semiconductor junction also significantly enhances the chemical reactivity of the MoSe{sub 2} overlayer, as observed by Hydrogen absorption. Furthermore, for Ni contact, there is a signature of induced magnetism in MoSe{sub 2} monolayer.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Predicting critical temperatures of iron(II) spin crossover materials: Density functional theory plus U approach

A first-principles study of critical temperatures (T{sub c}) of spin crossover (SCO) materials requires accurate description of the strongly correlated 3d electrons as well as much computational effort. This task is still a challenge for the widely used local density or generalized gradient approximations (LDA/GGA) and hybrid functionals. One remedy, termed density functional theory plus U (DFT+U) approach, introduces a Hubbard U term to deal with the localized electrons at marginal computational cost, while treats the delocalized electrons with LDA/GGA. Here, we employ the DFT+U approach to investigate the T{sub c} of a pair of iron(II) SCO molecular crystals (α and β phase), where identical constituent molecules are packed in different ways. We first calculate the adiabatic high spin-low spin energy splitting ΔE{sub HL} and molecular vibrational frequencies in both spin states, then obtain the temperature dependent enthalpy and entropy changes (ΔH and ΔS), and finally extract T{sub c} by exploiting the ΔH/T − T and ΔS − T relationships. The results are in agreement with experiment. Analysis of geometries and electronic structures shows that the local ligand field in the α phase is slightly weakened by the H-bondings involving the ligand atoms and the specific crystal packing style. We find that this effect is largely responsible for the difference in T{sub c} of the two phases. This study shows the applicability of the DFT+U approach for predicting T{sub c} of SCO materials, and provides a clear insight into the subtle influence of the crystal packing effects on SCO behavior.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2015

Self-assembled peptide nanotubes as electronic materials: An evaluation from first-principles calculations

In this letter, we report on the evaluation of diphenylalanine (FF), dityrosine (YY), and phenylalanine-tryptophan (FW) self-assembled peptide nanotube structures for electronics and photonics applications. Realistic bulk peptide nanotube material models were used in density functional theory calculations to mimic the well-ordered tubular nanostructures. Importantly, validated functionals were applied, specifically by using a London dispersion correction to model intertube interactions and a range-separated hybrid functional for accurate bandgap calculations. Bandgaps were found consistent with available experimental data for FF, and also corroborate the higher conductance reported for FW in comparison to FF peptide nanotubes. Interestingly, the predicted bandgap for the YY tubular nanostructure was found to be slightly higher than that of FW, suggesting higher conductance as well. In addition, the band structure calculations along the high symmetry line of nanotube axis revealed a direct bandgap for FF. The results enhance our understanding of the electronic properties of these material systems and will pave the way into their application in devices.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

A DFT study on the adsorption of CO and CO{sub 2} molecules on Pt{sub 4} and Ir{sub 4} clusters

We analyze the electronic structure and adsorption binding energy of CO and CO{sub 2} molecules adsorbed on Ir{sub 4} and Pt{sub 4} clusters by using Density functional theory (DFT). It is found that the Ir{sub 4} cluster has more adsorption binding energy than Pt{sub 4} cluster. We show that the Ir and Ir - supported materials are good catalytic materials and could be useful for gas sensor applications.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2016

The LDA+U calculation of electronic band structure of GaAs

We present the electronic band structure of bulk gallium arsenide (GaAs) using first principle approach. A series of calculations has been performed by applying norm-conserving pseudopotentials and ultrasoft non-norm-conserving pseudopotentials within the density functional theory. These calculations yield too small band gap as compare to experiment. Thus, we use semiemperical approach called local density approximation plus the multi-orbital mean-field Hubbard model (LDA+U), which is quite effective in order to describe the band gap of GaAs.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Band gap and electronic structure of MgSiN{sub 2}

Density functional theory calculations and electron energy loss spectroscopy indicate that the electronic structure of ordered orthorhombic MgSiN{sub 2} is similar to that of wurtzite AlN. A band gap of 5.7 eV was calculated for both MgSiN{sub 2} (indirect) and AlN (direct) using the Heyd-Scuseria-Ernzerhof approximation. Correction with respect to the experimental room-temperature band gap of AlN indicates that the true band gap of MgSiN{sub 2} is 6.2 eV. MgSiN{sub 2} has an additional direct gap of 6.3 eV at the Γ point.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Effect of tensile strain on the electronic structure of Ge: A first-principles calculation

Taking the change of L-point conduction band valley degeneracy under strain into consideration, we investigate the effect of biaxially tensile strain (parallel to the (001), (110), and (111) planes) and uniaxially tensile strain (along the [001], [110], and [111] directions) on the electronic structure of Ge using density functional theory calculations. Our calculation shows that biaxial tension parallel to (001) is the most efficient way to transform Ge into a direct bandgap material among all tensile strains considered. [111]-tension is the best choice among all uniaxial approaches for an indirect- to direct-bandgap transition of Ge. The calculation results, which are further elaborated by bond-orbital approximation, provide a useful guidance on the optical applications of Ge through strain engineering.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2013

Pressure driven spin crossover and isostructural phase transition in LaFeO{sub 3}

We have studied the behavior of LaFeO{sub 3} under pressure (P) using density functional theory (DFT) and atomistic simulations. Ground state structural properties of LaFeO{sub 3} are correctly described by atomistic simulations. The effect of high pressure shows that there is an isotropic compression up to 100 GPa. However, DFT calculations show that within pressure range 0 < P < 32.4 GPa, LaFeO{sub 3} retains its ground state electronic structure. On the other hand, at P ∼32.4 GPa high to low spin magnetic phase transition is observed, which is accompanied by 6.9% volume collapse of LaFeO{sub 3} unit cell, while retaining the ground state orthorhombic crystal structure, i.e., isostructural phase transition. Furthermore, the band gap is closed leading insulator to metal transition. This differing behavior observed by the two techniques can be attributed to the omission of magnetic effects in static simulations. The simultaneous magnetic, electrical, and structural (volume collapse) phase transitions of LaFeO{sub 3} under compression as revealed by DFT calculations corroborate experimental findings. From these results, we can elaborate the mechanism of phase transition in LaFeO{sub 3}: increasing crystal field induces a high spin to low spin transition, which in turn drives the electrical transitions and volume collapse.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2016

First-principles study of crystal and electronic structure of rare-earth cobaltites

Using density functional theory plus self-consistent Hubbard U (DFT + U{sub sc}) calculations, we have investigated the structural and electronic properties of the rare-earth cobaltites RCoO{sub 3} (R = Pr – Lu). Our calculations show the evolution of crystal and electronic structure of the insulating low-spin RCoO{sub 3} with increasing rare-earth atomic number (decreasing ionic radius), including the invariance of the Co-O bond distance (d{sub Co–O}), the decrease of the Co-O-Co bond angle (Θ), and the increase of the crystal field splitting (Δ{sub CF}) and band gap energy (E{sub g}). Agreement with experiment for the latter improves considerably with the use of DFT + U{sub sc} and all trends are in good agreement with the experimental data. These trends enable a direct test of prior rationalizations of the trend in spin-gap associated with the spin crossover in this series, which is found to expose significant issues with simple band based arguments. We also examine the effect of placing the rare-earth f-electrons in the core region of the pseudopotential. The effect on lattice parameters and band structure is found to be small, but distinct for the special case of PrCoO{sub 3} where some f-states populate the middle of the gap, consistent with the recent reports of unique behavior in Pr-containing cobaltites. Overall, this study establishes a foundation for future predictive studies of thermally induced spin excitations in rare-earth cobaltites and similar systems.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

FDE-vdW: A van der Waals inclusive subsystem density-functional theory

We present a formally exact van der Waals inclusive electronic structure theory, called FDE-vdW, based on the Frozen Density Embedding formulation of subsystem Density-Functional Theory. In subsystem DFT, the energy functional is composed of subsystem additive and non-additive terms. We show that an appropriate definition of the long-range correlation energy is given by the value of the non-additive correlation functional. This functional is evaluated using the fluctuation–dissipation theorem aided by a formally exact decomposition of the response functions into subsystem contributions. FDE-vdW is derived in detail and several approximate schemes are proposed, which lead to practical implementations of the method. We show that FDE-vdW is Casimir-Polder consistent, i.e., it reduces to the generalized Casimir-Polder formula for asymptotic inter-subsystems separations. Pilot calculations of binding energies of 13 weakly bound complexes singled out from the S22 set show a dramatic improvement upon semilocal subsystem DFT, provided that an appropriate exchange functional is employed. The convergence of FDE-vdW with basis set size is discussed, as well as its dependence on the choice of associated density functional approximant.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2015

Ultra-sensitive pressure dependence of bandgap of rutile-GeO{sub 2} revealed by many body perturbation theory

The reported values of bandgap of rutile GeO{sub 2} calculated by the standard density functional theory within local-density approximation (LDA)/generalized gradient approximation (GGA) show a wide variation (∼2 eV), whose origin remains unresolved. Here, we investigate the reasons for this variation by studying the electronic structure of rutile-GeO{sub 2} using many-body perturbation theory within the GW framework. The bandgap as well as valence bandwidth at Γ-point of rutile phase shows a strong dependence on volume change, which is independent of bandgap underestimation problem of LDA/GGA. This strong dependence originates from a change in hybridization among O-p and Ge-(s and p) orbitals. Furthermore, the parabolic nature of first conduction band along X-Γ-M direction changes towards a linear dispersion with volume expansion.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2018

First-Principles Calculations on the Wettability of Li Atoms on the (111) Surfaces of W and Mo Substrates

Comprehension over the interactions between lithium (Li) atoms and tungsten (W) or molybdenum (Mo) are crucial to improve the wettability of the flowing liquid Li, a candidate plasma facing material in fusion devices, on the surfaces of supported substrate metals. In this work, we utilize first-principles density- functional theory calculations to figure out the adsorption and diffusion properties of Li atoms and clusters on the (111) surfaces of W and Mo. It is found that single Li atom in the fcc-hollow site is the most favored configuration. For the multiple Li atoms adsorption on the substrates, the planar construction is more stable than the stacking one. The electronic structure analysis shows that the lateral interaction between Li atoms is very weak and the binding between Li atom and the substrates is strong; therefore, it can be inferred that the liquid Li is “wetting” intrinsically on the surfaces of the W and Mo substrates. We also investigate the effect of defects (vacancy, H, C, and O) and find that the preexisted vacancy in the substrates has little effect on the wettability; however, the impurities (especially O atom) will hinder the movement of Li atoms on the metal substrates.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗