arXiv subjects

Claudio Cazorla

Publications and source records attributed to Claudio Cazorla.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Multiple structural transitions driven by spin-phonon couplings in a perovskite oxide

Spin-phonon interactions are central to many interesting phenomena, ranging from superconductivity to magnetoelectric effects. Yet, they are believed to have a negligible influence on the structural behavior of most materials. For example, magnetic perovskite oxides often undergo structural transitions accompanied by magnetic signatures whose minuteness suggests that the underlying spin-phonon couplings are largely irrelevant. Here we present an exception to this rule, showing that novel effects can occur as a consequence. Our first-principles calculations reveal that spin-phonon interactions are essential to reproduce the experimental observations on the phase diagram of magnetoelectric multiferroic BiCoO$_{3}$. Moreover, we predict that, under compression, these couplings lead to an unprecedented temperature-driven double-reentrant sequence of ferroelectric transitions. We propose how to modify BiCoO$_{3}$ via chemical doping to reproduce such striking effects at ambient conditions, thereby yielding useful multifunctionality.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Simulation and understanding of quantum crystals

Quantum crystals abound in the whole range of solid-state species. Below a certain threshold temperature the physical behavior of rare gases (4He and Ne), molecular solids (H2 and CH4), and some ionic (LiH), covalent (graphite), and metallic (Li) crystals can be only explained in terms of quantum nuclear effects (QNE). A detailed comprehension of the nature of quantum solids is critical for achieving progress in a number of fundamental and applied scientific fields like, for instance, planetary sciences, hydrogen storage, nuclear energy, quantum computing, and nanoelectronics. This review describes the current physical understanding of quantum crystals and the wide variety of simulation techniques that are used to investigate them. Relevant aspects in these materials such as phase transformations, energy and structural properties, elasticity, and the effects of crystalline defects and dimensionality, are discussed thoroughly. An introduction to quantum Monte Carlo techniques, which in the present context are the simulation methods of choice, and other quantum simulation approaches (e. g., path-integral molecular dynamics and quantum thermal baths) is provided. The overarching objective of this article is twofold. First, to clarify in which crystals and physical situations the disregard of QNE may incur in important bias and erroneous interpretations. And second, to promote the study and appreciation of QNE, a topic that traditionally has been treated in the context of condensed matter physics, within the broad and interdisciplinary areas of materials science.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Revisiting the zero-temperature phase diagram of stoichiometric SrCoO3 with first-principles methods

By using first-principles methods based on density functional theory we revisited the zero-temperature phase diagram of stoichiometric SrCoO3, a ferromagnetic metallic perovskite that undergoes significant structural, electronic, and magnetic changes as its content of oxygen is decreased. We considered both bulk and epitaxial thin film geometries. In the bulk case, we found that a tetragonal P4/mbm phase with moderate Jahn-Teller distortions and c/a ratio of ~1/sqrt{2} is consistently predicted to have a lower energy than the thus far assumed ground-state cubic Pm-3m phase. In thin films, we found two phase transitions occurring at compressive and tensile epitaxial strains. However, in contrast to previous theoretical predictions, our results show that: (i) the phase transition induced by tensile strain is isostructural and involves only a change in magnetic spin order (that is, not a metallic to insulator transformation), and (ii) the phase transition induced by compressive strain comprises simultaneous structural, electronic and magnetic spin order changes, but the required epitaxial stress is so large (<-6%) that is unlikely to be observed in practice. Our findings call for a revision of the crystallographic analysis performed in fully oxidised SrCoO3 samples at low temperatures, as well as of previous first-principles studies.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Prediction of giant mechanocaloric effects in fluorite-structured superionic materials

Mechanocaloric materials experience a change in temperature when a mechanical stress is adiabatically applied on them. Thus far, only ferroelectrics and superelastic metallic alloys have been considered as potential mechanocaloric compounds to be exploited in solid-state cooling applications. Here we show that giant mechanocaloric effects occur in hitherto overlooked fast ion conductors (FIC), a class of multicomponent materials in which above a critical temperature, Ts, a constituent ionic species undergoes a sudden increase in mobility. Using first-principles and molecular dynamics simulations, we found that the superionic transition in fluorite-structured FIC, which is characterised by a large entropy increase of the order of 100 J/K*Kg, can be externally tuned with hydrostatic, biaxial or uniaxial stresses. In particular, Ts can be reduced several hundreds of degrees through the application of moderate tensile stresses due to the concomitant drop in the formation energy of Frenkel pair defects. We predict that the adiabatic temperature change in CaF2 and PbF2, two archetypal fluorite-structured FIC, close to their critical points are of the order of 100 and 10 K, respectively. This work advocates that FIC constitute a new family of mechanocaloric materials showing great promise for prospective solid-state refrigeration applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Electrostatic engineering of strained ferroelectric perovskites from first-principles

Design of novel artificial materials based on ferroelectric perovskites relies on the basic principles of electrostatic coupling and in-plane lattice matching. These rules state that the out-of-plane component of the electric displacement field and the in-plane components of the strain are preserved across a layered superlattice, provided that certain growth conditions are respected. Intense research is currently directed at optimizing materials functionalities based on these guidelines, often with remarkable success. Such principles, however, are of limited practical use unless one disposes of reliable data on how a given material behaves under arbitrary electrical and mechanical boundary conditions. Here we demonstrate, by focusing on the prototypical ferroelectrics PbTiO3 and BiFeO3 as testcases, how such information can be calculated from first principles in a systematic and efficient way. In particular, we construct a series of two-dimensional maps that describe the behavior of either compound (e.g. concerning the ferroelectric polarization and antiferrodistortive instabilities) at any conceivable choice of the in-plane lattice parameter, a, and out-of-plane electric displacement, D. In addition to being of immediate practical applicability to superlattice design, our results bring new insight into the complex interplay of competing degrees of freedom in perovskite materials, and reveal some notable instances where the behavior of these materials depart from what naively is expected.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

First-principles modeling of three-body interactions in highly compressed solid helium

We present a new set of three-body interaction models based on the Bruch-McGee (BM) potential that are suitable for the study of the energy, structural and elastic properties of solid 4He at high pressure. Our ab initio three-body potentials are obtained from the fit to total energies and atomic forces computed with the van der Waals density functional theory method due to Grimme, and represent an improvement with respect to previously reported three-body interaction models. In particular, we show that some of the introduced BM parametrizations reproduce closely the experimental equation of state and bulk modulus of solid helium up to a pressure of ~ 60 GPa, when used in combination with standard pairwise interaction models in diffusion Monte Carlo simulations. Importantly, we find that recent predictions reporting a surprisingly small variation of the kinetic energy and Lindeman ratio on quantum crystals under increasing pressure are likely to be artifacts produced by the use of incomplete interaction models. Also, we show that the experimental variation of the shear modulus, C44, at P < 25 GPa can be quantitatively described with the new set of three-body BM potentials. At higher pressures, however, the agreement between our C44 results and experiments deteriorates and thus we argue that higher order many-body terms in the expansion of the atomic interactions probably are necessary in order to better describe elasticity in very dense solid 4He.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

In the search of new electrocaloric materials: Fast ion conductors

We analyse the effects of applying an electric field on the critical temperature, Ts, at which superionicity appears in archetypal fast ion conductor CaF2 by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the onset of superionicity can be reduced by about 100K when relatively small electric fields of ~50KV/cm are employed. Under large enough electric fields, however, ionic conductivity is depleted. The normal to superionic phase transition is characterised by a large increase of entropy, thereby sizeable electrocaloric effects can be realised in fast ion conductors that are promising for solid-state cooling applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

The Role of Density Functional Theory Methods in the Prediction of Nanostructured Gas-Adsorbent Materials

With the advent of new synthesis and large-scale production technologies, nanostructured gas-adsorbent materials (GAM) like carbon nanocomposites and metal-organic frameworks are becoming increasingly more influential in our everyday lives. First-principles methods based on density functional theory (DFT) have been pivotal in establishing the rational design of GAM, a factor which has tremendously boosted their development. However, DFT methods are not perfect and due to the stringent accuracy thresholds demanded in modelling of GAM (i.e., exact binding energies to within ~0.01 eV) these techniques may provide erroneous conclusions in some challenging situations. Examples of problematic circumstances include gas-adsorption processes in which both electronic long-range exchange and nonlocal correlations are important, and systems where many-body energy and Coulomb screening effects cannot be disregarded. In this critical review, we analyse recent efforts done in the assessment of the performance of DFT methods in the prediction and understanding of GAM. Our inquiry is constrained to the areas of hydrogen storage and carbon capture and sequestration, for which we expose a number of unresolved modelling controversies and define a set of best practice simulation principles. Also, we identify the subtle problems found in the generalization of DFT benchmark studies performed in model cluster systems to real materials, and discuss effective approaches to circumvent them. The increasing awareness of the strengths and imperfections of DFT methods in the simulation of gas-adsorption phenomena should lead in the medium term to more precise, and hence even more fruitful, ab initio engineering of GAM.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Superionicity and Polymorphism in Calcium Fluoride at High Pressure

We present a combined experimental and computational first-principles study of the superionic and structural properties of CaF2 at high P-T conditions. We observe an anomalous superionic behavior in the low-P fluorite phase that consists in a decrease of the normal-> superionic critical temperature with compression. This unexpected effect can be explained in terms of a P-induced softening of a zone-boundary $X$ phonon which involves exclusively fluorine displacements. Also we find that superionic conductivity is absent in the high-P cotunnite phase. Instead, superionicity develops in a new low-symmetry high-T phase that we identify as monoclinic (space group P2_1/c). We discuss the possibility of observing these intriguing phenomena in related isomorphic materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

First-Principles Modeling of Quantum Nuclear Effects and Atomic Interactions in Solid 4He at High Pressure

We present a first-principles computational study of solid 4He at T=0K and pressures up to 160GPa. Our computational strategy consists in using van der Waals density functional theory (DFT-vdW) to describe the electronic degrees of freedom in this material, and the diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) method to solve the Schrodinger equation describing the behavior of the quantum nuclei. For this, we construct an analytical interaction function based on the pairwise Aziz potential that closely matches the volume variation of the cohesive energy calculated with DFT-vdW in dense helium. Interestingly, we find that the kinetic energy of solid 4He does not increase appreciably with compression for P > 85GPa. Also, we show that the Lindemann ratio in dense solid 4He amounts to 0.10 almost independently of pressure. The reliability of customary quasi-harmonic DFT (QH DFT) approaches in the description of quantum nuclear effects in solids is also studied. We find that QH DFT simulations, although provide a reasonable equation of state in agreement with experiments, are not able to reproduce correctly these critical effects in compressed 4He. In particular, we disclose huge discrepancies of at least ~50% in the calculated 4He kinetic energies using both the QH DFT and present DFT-DMC methods.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

The Limit of Mechanical Stability in Quantum Crystals: A Diffusion Monte Carlo Study of Solid 4He

We present a first-principles study of the energy and elastic properties of solid helium at pressures below the range in which is energetically stable. We find that the limit of mechanical stability in hcp 4He is $P_{s}$ = -33.82 bar, which lies significantly below the spinodal pressure found in the liquid phase (i.e., -9.6 bar). Furthermore, we show that the pressure variation of the transverse and longitudinal sound velocities close to $P_{s}$ do not follow a power law of the form $\propto \left( P - P_{s} \right)^γ$, in contrast to what is observed on the fluid.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2014

Supporting Material for: Superionicity and Polymorphism in Calcium Fluoride at High Pressure

In this supplemental document we explain the details of our ab initio density functional theory calculations and crystal structure searches performed in CaF2 under pressure. Also we report the computed P-dependence of the formation energy of Frenkel pair defects in the cubic fluorite phase, and the vibrational phonon spectra and structural data of the predicted high-T monoclinic P2_1/c phase. Calculated enthalpy energies in compressed SrF2 and BaF2 are also presented.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Ab initio design of charge-mismatched ferroelectric superlattices

We present a systematic approach to modeling the electrical and structural properties of charge-mismatched superlattices from first principles. Our strategy is based on bulk calculations of the parent compounds, which we perform as a function of in-plane strain and out-of-plane electric displacement field. The resulting two-dimensional phase diagrams allow us to accurately predict, without performing further calculations, the behavior of a layered heterostructure where the aforementioned building blocks are electrostatically and elastically coupled, with an arbitrary choice of the interface charge (originated from the polar discontinuity) and volume ratio. By using the [PbTiO3]_m/[BiFeO3]_n system as test case, we demonstrate that interface polarity has a dramatic impact on the ferroelectric behavior of the superlattice, leading to the stabilization of otherwise inaccessible bulk phases.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Insights into the Phase Diagram of Bismuth Ferrite from Quasi-Harmonic Free Energy Calculations

We have used first-principles methods to investigate the phase diagram of multiferroic bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3 or BFO), revealing the energetic and vibrational features that control the occurrence of various relevant structures. More precisely, we have studied the relative stability of four low-energy BFO polymorphs by computing their free energies within the quasi-harmonic approximation, introducing a practical scheme that allows us to account for the main effects of spin disorder. As expected, we find that the ferroelectric ground state of the material (with R3c space group) transforms into an orthorhombic paraelectric phase (Pnma) upon heating. We show that this transition is not significantly affected by magnetic disorder, and that the occurrence of the Pnma structure relies on its being vibrationally (although not elastically) softer than the R3c phase. We also investigate a representative member of the family of nano-twinned polymorphs recently predicted for BFO [Prosandeev et al., Adv. Funct. Mater. 23, 234 (2013)] and discuss their possible stabilization at the boundaries separating the R3c and Pnma regions in the corresponding pressure-temperature phase diagram. Finally, we elucidate the intriguing case of the so-called super-tetragonal phases of BFO: Our results explain why such structures have never been observed in the bulk material, despite their being stable polymorphs of very low energy. Quantitative comparison with experiment is provided whenever possible, and the relative importance of various physical effects (zero-point motion, spin fluctuations, thermal expansion) and technical features (employed exchange-correlation energy density functional) is discussed. Our work attests the validity and usefulness of the quasi-harmonic scheme to investigate the phase diagram of this complex oxide, and prospective applications are discussed.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Possible superfluidity of molecular hydrogen in a two-dimensional crystal phase of sodium

We theoretically investigate the ground-state properties of a molecular para-hydrogen (p-H2) film in which crystallization is energetically frustrated by embedding sodium (Na) atoms periodically distributed in a triangular lattice. In order to fully deal with the quantum nature of p-H2 molecules, we employ the diffusion Monte Carlo method and realistic semi-empirical pairwise potentials describing the interactions between H2-H2 and Na-H2 species. In particular, we calculate the energetic, structural and superfluid properties of two-dimensional Na-H2 systems within a narrow density interval around equilibrium at zero temperature. In contrast to previous computational studies considering other alkali metal species such as rubidium and potassium, we find that the p-H2 ground-state is a liquid with a significantly large superfluid fraction of ~30%. The appearance of p-H2 superfluid response is due to the fact that the interactions between Na atoms and H2 molecules are less attractive than between H2 molecules. This induces a considerable reduction of the hydrogen density which favours the stabilization of the liquid phase.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

The high-pressure high-temperature phase diagram of calcium fluoride from classical atomistic simulations

We study the phase diagram of calcium fluoride (CaF2) under pressure using classical molecular dynamic simulations performed with a simple pairwise interatomic potential of the Born-Mayer-Huggings form. Our results obtained under conditions 0 < P < 20 GPa and 0 < T < 4000 K reveal a rich variety of multi-phase boundaries involving different crystal, superionic and liquid phases, for all which we provide an accurate parametrization. Interestingly, we predict the existence of three special triple points (i.e. solid-solid-superionic, solid-superionic-superionic and superionic-superionic-liquid coexisting states) within a narrow and experimentally accessible thermodynamic range of 6 < P < 8 GPa and 1500 < T < 2750 K. Also, we examine the role of short-ranged repulsive (SR) and long-ranged attractive (LA) atomic interactions in the prediction of melting lines with the finding that SR Ca-F and LA F-F contributions are most decisive.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Elastic Constants of Incommensurate Solid 4He

We study the elastic properties of incommensurate solid 4He in the limit of zero temperature. Specifically, we calculate the pressure dependence of the five elastic constants (C11, C12, C13, C33, and C44), longitudinal and transversal speeds of sound, and the T = 0 Debye temperature of incommensurate and commensurate hcp 4He using the diffusion Monte Carlo method. Our results show that under compression the commensurate crystal is globally stiffer than the incommensurate, however at pressures close to melting (i.e. P ~ 25 bars) some of the elastic constants accounting for strain deformations of the hcp basal plane (C12 and C13) are slightly larger in the incommensurate solid. Also, we find that upon the introduction of tiny concentrations of point defects the shear modulus of 4He (C44) undergoes a small reduction.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2013

Accuracy of Density Functional Theory in Prediction of Carbon Dioxide Adsorbent Materials

We have performed a thorough computational study to assess the accuracy of density functional theory (DFT) methods in describing the interactions of CO2 with model alkali-earth-metal (AEM, Ca and Li) decorated carbon structures, namely anthracene (C14H10) molecules. We find that gas-adsorption energy and equilibrium structure results obtained with both standard (i.e. LDA and GGA) and hybrid (i.e. PBE0 and B3LYP) exchange-correlation functionals of DFT differ significantly from results obtained with second-order Moller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2), an accurate computational quantum chemistry method. The major disagreements found can be mostly rationalized in terms of electron correlation errors that lead to inaccurate charge transfers and electrostatic Coulomb interactions between the molecules. Interestingly, we show that when the concentration of AEM atoms in anthracene is tuned to resemble as closely as possible to the electronic structure of AEM-decorated graphene, hybrid exchange-correlation DFT and MP2 methods provide quantitatively similar results. We discuss the implications of our work in modeling and characterization of currently sought carbon capture and sequestration materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗