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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2015

Ab initio study of anisotropic mechanical properties of LiCoO{sub 2} during lithium intercalation and deintercalation process

The mechanical properties of Li{sub x}CoO{sub 2} under various Li concentrations and associated anisotropy have been systematically studied using the first principles method. During the lithium intercalation process, the Young's modulus, bulk modulus, shear modulus, and ultimate strength increase with increasing lithium concentration. Strong anisotropy of mechanical properties between a-axis and c-axis in Li{sub x}CoO{sub 2} is identified at low lithium concentrations, and the anisotropy decreases with increasing lithium concentration. The observed lithium concentration dependence and anisotropy are explained by analyzing the charge transfer using Bader charge analysis, bond order analysis, and bond strength by investigating partial density of states and charge density difference. With the decrease of Li concentration, the charge depletion in the bonding regions increases, indicating a weaker Co-O bond strength. Additionally, the Young's modulus, bulk modulus, shear modulus, and toughness are obtained by simulating ab initio tensile tests. From the simulated stress-strain curves, Li{sub x}CoO{sub 2} shows the highest toughness, which is in contraction with Pugh criterion prediction based on elastic properties only.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Temperature dependence of structural, dynamical, and electronic properties of amorphous Bi 2 Te 3 : an ab initio study

Bismuth telluride (Bi 2 Te 3 ) has garnered significant interest in thermoelectric applications and three-dimensional topological insulators due to its unique electronic, transport, and thermal properties. Bi 2 Te 3 and Sb 2 Te 3 chalcogenide compounds have the same crystal structure. While Sb 2 Te 3 has been shown to be a prototypical phase change memory (PCM) compound along the pseudobinary tie-line of Ge-Sb-Te alloys, whether Bi 2 Te 3 can also exhibit PCM functionality is still not well established. In this work, a systematic study on the structural, dynamical, and electronic properties of amorphous Bi 2 Te 3 during the quenching process has been performed by using ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. Pair correlation function, coordination number, bond-angle distribution functions, and a novel atomistic cluster alignment method are used to explore the structural characteristics of Bi 2 Te 3 as a function of temperature. Our study shows that there are many distorted octahedral clusters in amorphous Bi 2 Te 3 . In comparison with the local structures in Sb 2 Te 3 , we found that the degree of distortion of the octahedrons in the Bi 2 Te 3 system is smaller than that in Sb 2 Te 3 system. Moreover, the changes in the dynamical properties of Bi 2 Te 3 from liquid to glassy state are also explored. The approximate range of liquid-to-glass transition temperature is determined to be between 673 and 723 K. The electronic properties of Bi2Te 3 and Sb 2 Te 3 are also analysed by density-of-states and Bader charge calculations, both of them in glass state are semiconductors. Our studies provide useful insights into the local structure and dynamical properties of Bi 2 Te 3 at the atomistic level during the fast cooling process, and suggest that the compound can be a candidate for PCM materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Dissociating the phononic, magnetic and electronic contributions to thermal conductivity: a computational study in alpha-iron

Computational tools to study thermodynamic properties of magnetic materials have, until recently, been limited to phenomenological modeling or to small domain sizes limiting our mechanistic understanding of thermal transport in ferromagnets. Herein, we study the interplay of phonon and magnetic spin contributions to the thermal conductivity in a-iron utilizing non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. It was observed that the magnetic spin contribution to the total thermal conductivity exceeds lattice transport for temperatures up to two-thirds of the Curie temperature after which only strongly coupled magnon-phonon modes become active heat carriers. Characterizations of the phonon and magnon spectra give a detailed insight into the coupling between these heat carriers, and the temperature sensitivity of these coupled systems. Comparisons to both experiments and ab initio data support our inferred electronic thermal conductivity, supporting the coupled molecular dynamics/spin dynamics framework as a viable method to extend the predictive capability for magnetic material properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Evolution and Degradation Patterns of Electrochemical Cells Based on the Analysis of Interfacial Phenomena at Li Metal Anode/Electrolyte Interfaces

In this work, we report the results of a theoretical–computational analysis of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) growth and degradation dynamics occurring in lithium metal batteries during cycling. We use ab initio-kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to generate a synthetic data set, which is analyzed by machine learning methods. We aim to determine: (i) how modifications in interfacial interaction energies between solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) blocks and between Li ions and SEI facets impact the Coulombic efficiency (CE) of the battery and (ii) what factors, including reactions, microscopic transport, and other interfacial events, may lead to cell performance “failure” during prolonged charge and discharge cycles, signaled as a sharp decay in the CE over cycling. The demonstration of our approach is done on a cell including a Li metal surface interfacing with a previously introduced state-of-the-art electrolyte, and the idea can be applied to any electrochemical system. Outcomes include the identification of the leading chemical, physical, and structural variables causing cell failure and relating them to the electrolyte formulation, thus paving the way to future more refined analysis and electrolyte design.

batteries↗
DOE OSTI2018

Developing an interatomic potential for martensitic phase transformations in zirconium by machine learning

Abstract Atomic simulations provide an effective means to understand the underlying physics of structural phase transformations. However, this remains a challenge for certain allotropic metals due to the failure of classical interatomic potentials to represent the multitude of bonding. Based on machine-learning (ML) techniques, we develop a hybrid method in which interatomic potentials describing martensitic transformations can be learned with a high degree of fidelity from ab initio molecular dynamics simulations (AIMD). Using zirconium as a model system, for which an adequate semiempirical potential describing the phase transformation process is lacking, we demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach. Specifically, the ML-AIMD interatomic potential correctly captures the energetics and structural transformation properties of zirconium as compared to experimental and density-functional data for phonons, elastic constants, as well as stacking fault energies. Molecular dynamics simulations successfully reproduce the transformation mechanisms and reasonably map out the pressure–temperature phase diagram of zirconium.

Zong, Hongxiang↗
DOE OSTI2024

Downfolding from ab initio to interacting model Hamiltonians: comprehensive analysis and benchmarking of the DFT+cRPA approach

Abstract Model Hamiltonians are regularly derived from first principles to describe correlated matter. However, the standard methods for this contain a number of largely unexplored approximations. For a strongly correlated impurity model system, here we carefully compare a standard downfolding technique with the best possible ground-truth estimates for charge-neutral excited-state energies and wave functions using state-of-the-art first-principles many-body wave function approaches. To this end, we use the vanadocene molecule and analyze all downfolding aspects, including the Hamiltonian form, target basis, double-counting correction, and Coulomb interaction screening models. We find that the choice of target-space basis functions emerges as a key factor for the quality of the downfolded results, while orbital-dependent double-counting corrections diminish the quality. Background screening of the Coulomb interaction matrix elements primarily affects crystal-field excitations. Our benchmark uncovers the relative importance of each downfolding step and offers insights into the potential accuracy of minimal downfolded model Hamiltonians.

Chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2015

A classical mechanics model for the interpretation of piezoelectric property data

In order to provide a means of understanding, the relationship between the primary electromechanical coefficients and simple crystal chemistry parameters for piezoelectric materials, a static analysis of a 3 atom, dipolar molecule has been undertaken to derive relationships for elastic compliance s{sup E}, dielectric permittivity ε{sup X}, and piezoelectric charge coefficient d in terms of an effective ionic charge and two inter-atomic force constants. The relationships demonstrate the mutual interdependence of the three coefficients, in keeping with experimental evidence from a large dataset of commercial piezoelectric materials. It is shown that the electromechanical coupling coefficient k is purely an expression of the asymmetry in the two force constants or bond compliances. The treatment is extended to show that the quadratic electrostriction relation between strain and polarization, in both centrosymmetric and non-centrosymmetric systems, is due to the presence of a non-zero 2nd order term in the bond compliance. Comparison with experimental data explains the counter-intuitive, positive correlation of k with s{sup E} and ε{sup X} and supports the proposition that high piezoelectric activity in single crystals is dominated by large compliance coupled with asymmetry in the sub-cell force constants. However, the analysis also shows that in polycrystalline materials, the dielectric anisotropy of the constituent crystals can be more important for attaining large charge coefficients. The model provides a completely new methodology for the interpretation of piezoelectric and electrostrictive property data and suggests methods for rapid screening for high activity in candidate piezoelectric materials, both experimentally and by novel interrogation of ab initio calculations.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

High-resolution infrared spectroscopy of jet cooled CH 2 Br radicals: The symmetric CH stretch manifold and absence of nuclear spin cooling

Direct laser absorption of a slit supersonic discharge expansion provides the first high-resolution spectroscopic results on the symmetric CH stretch excitation (ν 1 ) of the bromomethyl (CH 2 Br) radical in the ground electronic state. Narrowband (<1 MHz) mid-infrared radiation is produced by difference-frequency generation of two visible laser beams, with the open shell halohydrocarbon radical generated by electron dissociative attachment of CH 2 Br 2 in a discharge and rapidly cooled to T rot = 18 ± 1 K in the subsequent slit-jet supersonic expansion. A rovibrational structure in the radical spectrum is fully resolved, as well as additional splittings due to spin-rotation effects and 79 Br/ 81 Br isotopologues in natural abundance. Spectroscopic constants and band origins are determined by fitting the transition frequencies to a non-rigid Watson Hamiltonian, yielding results consistent with a vibrationally averaged planar radical and an unpaired electron in the out-of-plane p π orbital. Additionally, extensive satellite band structure from a vibrational hot band is observed and analyzed. The hot band data is compared to CFOUR/VPT2 (CCSD(T)cc-pVQZ) ab initio anharmonic predictions of the vibration rotation alpha matrix, which permits unambiguous assignment to CH 2 symmetric-stretch excitation built on the singly excited CH 2 out-of-plane bending mode (ν 1 + ν 4 ← ν 4 ). Longitudinal cooling of the Doppler width in the slit-jet expansion geometry also reveals partially resolved hyperfine structure on transitions out of the lowest angular momentum states in excellent agreement with predictions based on microwave studies. High level ab initio MOLPRO calculations [CCSD(T)-f12b/VnZ-f12 (n = 3, 4, CBS)] are also performed with explicitly correlated f12 electron methods for the out-of-plane CH 2 bending mode over the halogen series CH 2 X (X = F, Cl, Br, I), which clearly reveals a non-planar geometry for X = F (with a ΔE ≈ 0.3 kcal/mol barrier) and yet planar equilibrium geometries for X = Cl, Br, and I. Finally, a detailed Boltzmann analysis of the transition intensities provides support for negligible collisional equilibration of the entangled H atom nuclear spin states on the few hundred microsecond time scale and high collision densities of a slit supersonic expansion.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

ThAu 2 – , ThAu 2 O – , and ThAuOH – anions: Photoelectron spectroscopic and theoretical characterization

The thorium–gold negative ions ThAu 2 – , ThAu 2 O – , and ThAuOH – have been observed and experimentally characterized by anion photoelectron spectroscopy. These experiments are accompanied by extensive ab initio electronic structure calculations using a relativistic composite methodology based primarily on coupled cluster singles and doubles with perturbative triples calculations. The theoretical electron affinities (EAs) at 0 K agree with the experimental adiabatic EAs to within 0.02 eV for all species. Two separate isomers were located in the calculations for ThAuOH – , and detachment from both of these appears to be present in the photoelectron spectrum. Excited electronic states of the neutral molecules are reported at the equation of motion-coupled cluster singles and doubles level of theory. Atomization energies and heats of formation are also calculated for each neutral species and have expected uncertainties of 3 and 4 kcal/mol, respectively. The σ bonds between Th and Au are determined by natural bond orbital analysis to consist of predominately sd hybrids on Th bonding with the Au 6s orbital. In order to investigate the correspondence between the bonding in Th–Au and Th–F molecules, a limited number of calculations were also carried out on most of the F-analogs of this study. These results demonstrate that Au does behave like F in these cases, although the Th–F σ bonds are much more ionic compared to Th–Au. This results in an EA for ThF 2 that is 10 kcal/mol smaller than that of ThAu 2 . The EA values for the Th(IV) species, i.e., ThX 2 O and ThXOH, only differed, however, by 3–4 kcal/mol.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Repartitioning the Hamiltonian in many-body second-order Brillouin–Wigner perturbation theory: Uncovering new size-consistent models

Second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory is well-known as a computationally inexpensive approach to the electron correlation problem that is size-consistent with a size-consistent reference but fails to be regular. On the other hand, the less well-known many-body version of Brillouin-Wigner perturbation theory has the reverse properties: it is regular but fails to be size-consistent when used with the standard MP partitioning. Consequently, its widespread use remains limited. In this work, we analyze the ways in which it is possible to use alternative non-MP partitions of the Hamiltonian to yield variants of BW2 that are size-consistent as well as regular. We show that there is a vast space of such BW2 theories and also show that it is possible to define a repartitioned BW2 theory from the ground state density alone, which regenerates the exact correlation energy. We also provide a general recipe for deriving regular, size-consistent, and size-extensive partitions from physically meaningful components, and we apply the result to small model systems. The scope of these results appears to further set the stage for a revival of BW2 in quantum chemistry.

Ab initio perturbation↗
DOE OSTI2017

Final Technical Report for Quantum Embedding for Correlated Electronic Structure in Large Systems and the Condensed Phase

This is the final technical report. We briefly describe some selected results below. Developments in density matrix embedding. DMET is a quantum embedding theory that we introduced at the beginning of the last funding period, around 2012-2013. Since the first DMET papers, which demonstrated proof-of- principle calculations on the Hubbard model and hydrogen rings, we have carried out a number of different developments, including: Extending the DMET technology to compute broken symmetry phases, including magnetic phases and super- conductivity (Pub. 13); Calibrating the accuracy of DMET and its cluster size convergence against other methods, and formulation of a dynamical cluster analog (Pubs. 4, 10) (see Fig. 1); Implementing DMET for ab-initio molecular calculations, and exploring different self-consistency criteria (Pubs. 9, 14); Using embedding to defi ne quantum classical interfaces Pub. 2; Formulating DMET for spectral functions (Pub. 7) (see Fig. 1); Extending DMET to coupled fermion-boson problems (Pub. 12). Together with these embedding developments, we have also implemented a wide variety of impurity solvers within our DMET framework, including DMRG (Pub. 3), AFQMC (Pub. 10), and coupled cluster theory (CC) (Pub. 9).

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2017

Bayesian Estimation of Thermonuclear Reaction Rates for Deuterium+Deuterium Reactions

The study of d+d reactions is of major interest since their reaction rates affect the predicted abundances of D, 3 He, and 7 Li. In particular, recent measurements of primordial D/H ratios call for reduced uncertainties in the theoretical abundances predicted by Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). Different authors have studied reactions involved in BBN by incorporating new experimental data and a careful treatment of systematic and probabilistic uncertainties. To analyze the experimental data, Coc et al. used results of ab initio models for the theoretical calculation of the energy dependence of S -factors in conjunction with traditional statistical methods based on χ 2 minimization. Bayesian methods have now spread to many scientific fields and provide numerous advantages in data analysis. Astrophysical S -factors and reaction rates using Bayesian statistics were calculated by Iliadis et al. In this paper we present a similar analysis for two d+d reactions, d(d, n) 3 He and d(d, p) 3 H, that has been translated into a total decrease of the predicted D/H value by 0.16%.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Multi-layer Lanczos iteration approach to calculations of vibrational energies and dipole transition intensities for polyatomic molecules

We report a rigorous full dimensional quantum dynamics algorithm, the multi-layer Lanczos method, for computing vibrational energies and dipole transition intensities of polyatomic molecules without any dynamics approximation. The multi-layer Lanczos method is developed by using a few advanced techniques including the guided spectral transform Lanczos method, multi-layer Lanczos iteration approach, recursive residue generation method, and dipole-wavefunction contraction. The quantum molecular Hamiltonian at the total angular momentum J = 0 is represented in a set of orthogonal polyspherical coordinates so that the large amplitude motions of vibrations are naturally described. In particular, the algorithm is general and problem-independent. An application is illustrated by calculating the infrared vibrational dipole transition spectrum of CH{sub 4} based on the ab initio T8 potential energy surface of Schwenke and Partridge [Spectrochimica Acta, Part A 57, 887 (2001)] and the low-order truncated ab initio dipole moment surfaces of Yurchenko et al. [J. Mol. Spectrosc. 291, 69 (2013)]. A comparison with experiments is made. The algorithm is also applicable for Raman polarizability active spectra.

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

Mid-infrared signatures of hydroxyl containing water clusters: Infrared laser Stark spectroscopy of OH–H{sub 2}O and OH(D{sub 2}O){sub n} (n = 1-3)

Small water clusters containing a single hydroxyl radical are synthesized in liquid helium droplets. The OH–H{sub 2}O and OH(D{sub 2}O){sub n} clusters (n = 1-3) are probed with infrared laser spectroscopy in the vicinity of the hydroxyl radical OH stretch vibration. Experimental band origins are qualitatively consistent with ab initio calculations of the global minimum structures; however, frequency shifts from isolated OH are significantly over-predicted by both B3LYP and MP2 methods. An effective Hamiltonian that accounts for partial quenching of electronic angular momentum is used to analyze Stark spectra of the OH–H{sub 2}O and OH–D{sub 2}O binary complexes, revealing a 3.70(5) D permanent electric dipole moment. Computations of the dipole moment are in good agreement with experiment when large-amplitude vibrational averaging is taken into account. Polarization spectroscopy is employed to characterize two vibrational bands assigned to OH(D{sub 2}O){sub 2}, revealing two nearly isoenergetic cyclic isomers that differ in the orientation of the non-hydrogen-bonded deuterium atoms relative to the plane of the three oxygen atoms. The dipole moments for these clusters are determined to be approximately 2.5 and 1.8 D for “up-up” and “up-down” structures, respectively. Hydroxyl stretching bands of larger clusters containing three or more D{sub 2}O molecules are observed shifted approximately 300 cm{sup −1} to the red of the isolated OH radical. Pressure dependence studies and ab initio calculations imply the presence of multiple cyclic isomers of OH(D{sub 2}O){sub 3}.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Ab initio study of the electronic and vibrational structures of tetragonal cadmium diarsenide

Ab initio calculations of the electronic spectrum, deformation electron density, and phonon frequencies at the center of the Brillouin zone of the CdAs{sub 2} tetragonal compound are carried out in the context of the density-functional method. It is established that the crystal is an indirect-gap semiconductor with a band gap of ~1 eV, which is in good agreement with well-known optical and electrical experimental data. The features of chemical bonding in the crystal are studied. The features are defined by the fact that As atoms form spiral chins of covalent As–As bonds, whereas Cd–As bonds are ionic-covalent. The ab initio calculated phonon frequencies are compared with the frequencies calculated in the Keating model and with experimental data; the partial contributions of Cd and As atoms are analyzed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2017

Ab initio calculations of phonon dispersion in CdGa{sub 2}Se{sub 4}

The density of phonon states and the phonon dispersion in the Brillouin zone are calculated by the density functional method of. The displacements of atoms in the elementary cell are constructed for vibrations of the A, B, and E symmetries. The calculated frequencies of optical phonons are consistent with the experimentally determined frequencies from the IR-absorption (infrared) and Raman-scattering spectra. In the xy plane, the intersection of low-frequency optical phonons with acoustic phonons is observed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1992

Ab initio multireference study of the BN molecule

The lowest 1Sigma(+) and 3Pi states of the BN molecule are studied using multireference configuration interaction (MRCI) and averaged coupled-pair functional (ACPF) methods and large atomic natural orbital (ANO) basis sets, as well as several coupled cluster methods. Our calculations strongly support a 3Pi ground state, but the a1Sigma(+) state lies only 381 +/- 100/cm higher. The a1Sigma(+) state wave function exhibits strong multireference character and, consequently, the predictions of the perturbationally-based single-reference CCSD(T) coupled cluster method are not as reliable in this case as the multireference results. The theoretical predictions for the spectroscopic constants of BN are in good agreement with experiment for the Chi3Pi state, but strongly suggest a misassignment of the fundamental vibrational frequency for the a1Sigma(+) state.

Martin, J. M. L.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Accurate ab Initio Quartic Force Fields, Vibrational Frequencies, and Heats of Formation for FCN, FNC, ClCN, and ClNC

The XCN and XNC (X = F, Cl) isomers have been investigated using the CCSD(T) method in conjunction with correlation consistent basis sets. Equilibrium geometries, harmonic frequencies, anharmonic constants, fundamental frequencies, and heats of formation have been evaluated. Agreement with experiment for the fundamental frequencies is very good, even for nu(sub 2), for CICN, which is subject to a strong Fermi resonance with 2nu(sub 3). It is also shown that a second-order perturbation theory approach to solving the nuclear Schroedinger equation gives results in excellent agreement with essentially exact variational calculations. This is true even for nu(sub 2) of ClCN, provided that near-singular terms are eliminated from the perturbation theory formulas and the appropriate Fermi interaction energy matrix is then diagonalized. A band at 615/cm, tentatively assigned as the Cl-N stretch in ClNC in matrix isolation experiments, is shown not to be due to ClNC. Accurate atomization energies are determined and are used to evaluate accurate heats of formation (3.1 +/- 1.5, 33.2 +/- 1.5, 72.6 +/- 1.5, and 75.9 +/- 1.5 kcal/mol for FCN, ClCN, FNC, and ClNC, respectively). It is expected that the theoretical heats of formation for FCN, FNC, and ClNC are the most accurate available.

Lee, Timothy J.↗