arXiv subjects

Bartomeu Monserrat

Publications and source records attributed to Bartomeu Monserrat.

88 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Quantum Monte Carlo study of the energetics of the rutile, anatase, brookite, and columbite TiO$_2$ polymorphs

The relative energies of the low-pressure rutile, anatase, and brookite polymorphs and the high-pressure columbite polymorph of TiO$_2$ have been calculated as a function of temperature using the diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (DMC) method and density functional theory (DFT). The vibrational energies are found to be important on the scale of interest and significant quartic anharmonicity is found in the rutile phase. Static-lattice DFT calculations predict that anatase is lower in energy than rutile, in disagreement with experiment. The accurate description of electronic correlations afforded by DMC calculations and the inclusion of anharmonic vibrational effects contribute to stabilizing rutile with respect to anatase. Our calculations predict a phase transition from anatase to rutile TiO$_2$ at $630 \pm 210$ K.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Hexagonal structure of phase III of solid hydrogen

A hexagonal structure of solid molecular hydrogen with $P6_122$ symmetry is calculated to be more stable below about 200 GPa than the monoclinic $C2/c$ structure identified previously as the best candidate for phase III. We find that the effects of nuclear quantum and thermal vibrations play a central role in the stabilization of $P6_122$. The $P6_122$ and $C2/c$ structures are very similar and their Raman and infra-red data are in good agreement with experiment. However, our calculations show that the hexagonal $P6_122$ structure provides better agreement with the available x-ray diffraction data than the $C2/c$ structure at pressures below about 200 GPa. We suggest that two phase-III-like structures may be formed at high pressures, hexagonal $P6_122$ below about 200 GPa and monoclinic $C2/c$ at higher pressures.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Temperature effects in the band structure of topological insulators

We study the effects of temperature on the band structure of the Bi$_2$Se$_3$ family of topological insulators using first-principles methods. Increasing temperature drives these materials towards the normal state, with similar contributions from thermal expansion and from electron-phonon coupling. The band gap changes with temperature reach $0.3$ eV at $600$ K, of similar size to the changes caused by electron correlation. Our results suggest that temperature-induced topological phase transitions should be observable near critical points of other external parameters.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Vibrational renormalisation of the electronic band gap in hexagonal and cubic ice

Electron-phonon coupling in hexagonal and cubic water ice is studied using first-principles quantum mechanical methods. We consider 29 distinct hexagonal and cubic ice proton-orderings with up to 192 molecules in the simulation cell to account for proton-disorder. We find quantum zero-point vibrational corrections to the minimum electronic band gaps ranging from -1.5 to -1.7 eV, which leads to improved agreement between calculated and experimental band gaps. Anharmonic nuclear vibrations play a negligible role in determining the gaps. Deuterated ice has a smaller band-gap correction at zero-temperature of -1.2 to -1.4eV. Vibrations reduce the differences between the electronic band gaps of different proton-orderings from around 0.17 eV to less than 0.05 eV, so that the electronic band gaps of hexagonal and cubic ice are almost independent of the proton-ordering when quantum nuclear vibrations are taken into account. The comparatively small reduction in the band gap over the temperature range 0-240 K of around 0.1 eV does not depend on the proton ordering, or whether the ice is protiated or deuterated, or hexagonal or cubic. We explain this in terms of the atomistic origin of the strong electron-phonon coupling in ice.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Correlation effects on electron-phonon coupling in semiconductors: many-body theory along thermal lines

A method is proposed for the inclusion of electron correlation in the calculation of the temperature dependence of band structures arising from electron-phonon coupling. It relies on an efficient exploration of the vibrational phase space along the recently introduced thermal lines. Using the $G_0W_0$ approximation, the temperature dependence of the direct gaps of diamond, silicon, lithium fluoride, magnesium oxide, and titanium dioxide is calculated. Within the proposed formalism, a single calculation at each temperature of interest is sufficient to obtain results of the same accuracy as in alternative, more expensive methods. It is shown that many-body contributions beyond semi-local density functional theory modify the electron-phonon coupling strength by almost $50$% in diamond, silicon, and titanium dioxide, but by less than $5$% in lithium flouride and magnesium oxide. The results reveal a complex picture regarding the validity of semi-local functionals for the description of electron-phonon coupling.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Vibrational averages along thermal lines

A method is proposed for the calculation of vibrational quantum and thermal expectation values of physical properties from first principles. Thermal lines are introduced: these are lines in configuration space parametrized by temperature, such that the value of any physical property along them is approximately equal to the vibrational average of that property. The number of sampling points needed to explore the vibrational phase space is reduced by up to an order of magnitude when the full vibrational density is replaced by thermal lines. Calculations of the vibrational averages of several properties and systems are reported, namely the internal energy and the electronic band gap of diamond and silicon, and the chemical shielding tensor of L-alanine. Thermal lines pave the way for complex calculations of vibrational averages, including large systems and methods beyond semi-local density functional theory.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Giant electron-phonon interactions in molecular crystals and the importance of non-quadratic coupling

We investigate electron-phonon coupling in the molecular crystals CH$_4$, NH$_3$, H$_2$O, and HF, using first-principles quantum mechanical calculations. We find vibrational corrections to the electronic band gaps at zero temperature of -1.97 eV, -1.01 eV, -1.52 eV, and -1.62 eV, respectively, which are comparable in magnitude to those from electron-electron correlation effects. Microscopically, the strong electron-phonon coupling arises in roughly equal measure from the almost dispersionless high-frequency molecular modes and from the lower frequency lattice modes. We also highlight the limitations of the widely used Allen-Heine-Cardona theory, which gives significant discrepancies compared to our more accurate treatment.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Lattice dynamics and electron-phonon coupling calculations using non-diagonal supercells

We study the direct calculation of total energy derivatives for lattice dynamics and electron-phonon coupling calculations using supercell matrices with non-zero off-diagonal elements. We show that it is possible to determine the response of a periodic system to a perturbation characterized by a wave vector with reduced fractional coordinates $(m_1/n_1,m_2/n_2,m_3/n_3)$ using a supercell containing a number of primitive cells equal to the least common multiple of $n_1$, $n_2$, and $n_3$. If only diagonal supercell matrices are used, a supercell containing $n_1n_2n_3$ primitive cells is required. We demonstrate that the use of non-diagonal supercells significantly reduces the computational cost of obtaining converged zero-point energies and phonon dispersions for diamond and graphite. We also perform electron-phonon coupling calculations using the direct method to sample the vibrational Brillouin zone with grids of unprecedented size, which enables us to investigate the convergence of the zero-point renormalization to the thermal and optical band gaps of diamond.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Anharmonic nuclear motion and the relative stability of hexagonal and cubic ice

We use extensive first-principles quantum mechanical calculations to show that, although the static lattice and harmonic vibrational energies are almost identical, the anharmonic vibrational energy of hexagonal ice is significantly lower than that of cubic ice. This difference in anharmonicity is crucial, stabilising hexagonal ice compared with cubic ice by at least 1.4 meV/H2O, in agreement with experimental estimates. The difference in anharmonicity arises predominantly from molecular O-H bond stretching vibrational modes and is related to the different stacking of atomic layers.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Quantum Monte Carlo study of the phase diagram of solid molecular hydrogen at extreme pressures

Establishing the phase diagram of hydrogen is a major challenge for experimental and theoretical physics. Experiment alone cannot establish the atomic structure of solid hydrogen at high pressure, because hydrogen scatters X-rays only weakly. Instead our understanding of the atomic structure is largely based on density functional theory (DFT). By comparing Raman spectra for low-energy structures found in DFT searches with experimental spectra, candidate atomic structures have been identified for each experimentally observed phase. Unfortunately, DFT predicts a metallic structure to be energetically favoured at a broad range of pressures up to 400 GPa, where it is known experimentally that hydrogen is nonmetallic. Here we show that more advanced theoretical methods (diffusion quantum Monte Carlo calculations) find the metallic structure to be uncompetitive, and predict a phase diagram in reasonable agreement with experiment. This greatly strengthens the claim that the candidate atomic structures accurately model the experimentally observed phases.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Temperature effects in first-principles solid state calculations of the chemical shielding tensor made simple

We study the effects of atomic vibrations on the solid-state chemical shielding tensor using first principles density functional theory calculations. At the harmonic level, we use a Monte Carlo method and a perturbative expansion. The Monte Carlo method is accurate but computationally expensive, while the perturbative method is computationally more efficient, but approximate. We find excellent agreement between the two methods for both the isotropic shift and the shielding anisotropy. The effects of zero-point quantum mechanical nuclear motion are important up to relatively high temperatures: at 500 K they still represent about half of the overall vibrational contribution. We also investigate the effects of anharmonic vibrations, finding that their contribution to the zero-point correction to the chemical shielding tensor is small. We exemplify these ideas using magnesium oxide and the molecular crystals L-alanine and beta-aspartyl-L-alanine. We therefore propose as the method of choice to incorporate the effects of temperature in solid state chemical shielding tensor calculations the perturbative expansion within the harmonic approximation. This approach is accurate and requires a computational effort that is about an order of magnitude smaller than that of dynamical or Monte Carlo approaches, so these effects might be routinely accounted for.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Comparing electron-phonon coupling strength in diamond, silicon and silicon carbide: First-principles study

Renormalization of the electronic band gap due to electron-phonon coupling in the tetrahedral semiconductors diamond, silicon and cubic silicon carbide is studied from first principles. There is a marked difference between the coupling of the vibrational state to the valence band maximum and to the conduction band minimum. The strength of phonon coupling to the valence band maximum is similar between the three systems and is dominated by vibrations that change the bond length. The coupling strength to the conduction band minimum differs significantly in diamond, silicon carbide and silicon. In diamond, the coupling is dominated by six small pockets of vibrational states in the phonon Brillouin zone, that are ultimately responsible for the stronger electron-phonon coupling in this material. Our results represent a first step towards the development of an a priori understanding of electron-phonon coupling in semiconductors and insulators, that should aid the design of materials with tailored electron-phonon coupling properties.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Dissociation of high-pressure solid molecular hydrogen: Quantum Monte Carlo and anharmonic vibrational study

A theoretical study is reported of the molecular-to-atomic transition in solid hydrogen at high pressure. We use the diffusion quantum Monte Carlo method to calculate the static lattice energies of the competing phases and a density-functional-theory-based vibrational self-consistent field method to calculate anharmonic vibrational properties. We find a small but significant contribution to the vibrational energy from anharmonicity. A transition from the molecular Cmca-12 direct to the atomic I4_1/amd phase is found at 374 GPa. The vibrational contribution lowers the transition pressure by 91 GPa. The dissociation pressure is not very sensitive to the isotopic composition. Our results suggest that quantum melting occurs at finite temperature.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Electron-Phonon Coupling and the Metalization of Solid Helium at Terapascal Pressures

Solid He is studied in the pressure and temperature ranges 1-40 TPa and 0-10,000 K using first-principles methods. Anharmonic vibrational properties are calculated within a self-consistent field framework, including the internal and free energies, density-pressure relation, stress tensor, thermal expansion, and the electron-phonon coupling renormalization of the electronic band gap. We find that an accurate description of electron-phonon coupling requires us to use a non-perturbative approach. The metalization pressure of 32.9 TPa at 0 K is larger than found previously. The vibrational effects are large; for example at P=30 TPa the band gap is increased by 2.8 eV by electron-phonon coupling and a further 0.1 eV by thermal expansion compared to the static value. The implications of the calculated metalization pressure for the cooling of white dwarfs are discussed.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Theory of temperature dependent phonon-renormalized properties

We present a general harmonic theory for the temperature dependence of phonon-renormalized properties of solids. Firstly, we formulate a perturbation theory in phonon-phonon interactions to calculate the phonon renormalization of physical quantities. Secondly, we propose two new schemes for extrapolating phonon zero-point corrections from temperature dependent data that improve the accuracy by an order of magnitude compared to previous approaches. Finally, we consider the low-temperature limit of the class of observables that includes the electronic band gap, obtaining a $T^4$ dependence in three dimensions, $T^2$ in two dimensions, and $T^{3/2}$ in one dimension.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Anharmonic vibrational properties in periodic systems: energy, electron-phonon coupling, and stress

A unified approach is used to study vibrational properties of periodic systems with first-principles methods and including anharmonic effects. Our approach provides a theoretical basis for the determination of phonon-dependent quantities at finite temperatures. The low-energy portion of the Born-Oppenheimer energy surface is mapped and used to calculate the total vibrational energy including anharmonic effects, electron-phonon coupling, and the vibrational contribution to the stress tensor. We report results for the temperature dependence of the electronic band gap and the linear coefficient of thermal expansion of diamond, lithium hydride, and lithium deuteride.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗