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| 2. |
- Baykov, Vitaly, 1977-
(author)
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Point defect interactions and structural stability of compounds
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Theoretical studies of point defect interactions and structural stability of compounds have been performed using density functional theory. The defect-related properties, such as activation energy of diffusion, electronic and magnetic structure of selected materials have been studied. The major part of the present work is devoted to a very important material for semiconductor industry, GaAs. The formation energies of intrinsic point defects and the solution energies of 3d transitions in GaAs have been calculated from first principles. Based on the calculated energies, we analysed the site preference of defects in the crystal. The tendency of defects to form clusters has been investigated for the intrinsic defects as well as for impurities in GaAs. The magnetic moment of 3d impurities has been calculated as a function of the chemical environment. The possibility of increasing the Curie temperature in (Ga,Mn)As by co-doping it with Cr impurities has been examined on the basis of calculated total energy difference between the disordered local moment and the ferromagnetically ordered spin configurations. We found that, in order to reach the highest critical temperature, GaAs should be separately doped with either Cr or Mn impurities. Also, we have shown that diffusion barrier of interstitial Mn depends on the charge state of this impurity in (Ga, Mn)As. The formation of defect complexes between interstitial and substitutional Mn atoms, and their influence on the value of diffusion barrier for interstitial Mn, has been studied. The pair interactions energies between interstitial oxygen atoms in hcp Zr, Hf and Ti have been calculated using first principles. Based on the calculated energies, the oxygen ordering structures in IVB transition metal solid solutions have been explained. A prediction of nitrogen ordering in Hf-N solid solution has been made. The thermodynamic description of intermetallic compounds in the Zr-Sn binary system has been obtained. The conclusion has been made that Zr substitution on the Sn sites takes place in the Zr4Sn phase, which accounts for the unusual stoichiometry of this Cr3Si structure type compound. The influence of pressure on the phase stability in the Fe-Si system has been investigated. We have found instability of the hcp Fe0.9Si0.1 random alloy with respect to the decomposition onto the Si-poor hcp Fe alloy and the B2 FeSi under high pressure. The tendency of this decomposition becomes stronger with increasing the applied pressure.
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| 3. |
- Bergqvist, Lars, 1976-, et al.
(author)
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Magnetic and electronic structure of (Ga1-xMnx)As
- 2003
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In: Physical Review B. Condensed Matter and Materials Physics. - 1098-0121 .- 1550-235X. ; 67:20, s. 205201-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We present theoretical calculations of the magnetic and electronic structure of Mn-doped GaAs (in the zinc-blende structure). The magnetic properties are shown to be very sensitive to structural defects, in particular, As antisite defects and Mn at interstitial positions. Only when considering such defects can the experimental magnetic moments be reproduced by first-principles theory. We present a simple model for understanding the connection between the magnetic ordering and the As antisites, and the way in which the defects help to stabilize a partial disordered local-moment state. The connection between the energetics of the Mn substitution and the As antisite concentration is also analyzed. In addition, we compare the calculated magnetic properties and electronic structures of Mn situated on substitutional sites (Mn replacing a Ga atom) and on interstitial sites, where in agreement with observations the interstitial site is found to be less favorable. Finally, combining our first-principles calculations of the spin-wave excitation energies with a classical Heisenberg Hamiltonian we have calculated interatomic exchange interactions, and using Monte Carlo simulations we present theoretical values of the critical temperature as a function of Mn concentration.
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| 4. |
- Delczeg-Czirjak, Erna-Krisztina, 1978-
(author)
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Energy relavant materials: Investigations based on first principles
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Energy production, storage and efficient usage are all crucial factors for environmentally sound and sustainable future technologies. One important question concerns the refrigeration industry, where the energy efficiency of the presently used technologies is at best 40% of the theoretical Carnot limit. Magnetic refrigerators offer a modern low-energy demand and environmentally friendly alternative. The diiron phosphide-based materials have been proposed to be amongst the most promising candidates for working body of magnetic refrigerators. Hydrogen is one of the most promising sources of renewable energy. Considerable international research focuses on finding good solid state materials for hydrogen storage. On the other hand, hydrogen gas is obtained from hydrogen containing chemical compounds, which after breaking the chemical bonds usually yield to a mixture of different gases. Palladiumsilver alloys are frequently used for hydrogen separation membranes for producing purified hydrogen gas. All these applications need a fundamental understanding of the structural, magnetic, chemical and thermophysical properties of the involved solid state materials. In this thesis ab initio electronic structure methods are used to study the magnetic and crystallographic properties of Fe2P based magneto-caloric compounds and the thermophysical properties of Pd-Ag binary alloys. The nature of magnetism and the strong sensitivity of the Curie temperature of the Fe2P1−xTx (T = boron, silicon and arsenic) are investigated. Using first principles theory, the change in the average magnetic exchange interactions upon doping is decomposed into chemical and structural contributions, the latter including the c/a and vol-ume effects. It is demonstrated that for the investigated alloys the structural effect can´be ascribed mainly to the c/a ratio that strengthens the magnetic exchange interactions between the two Fe sublattices. On the other hand, it is shown that the two types of Fe atoms have a very complicated co-dependency, which manifests in a metamagnetic behavior of the FeI sublattice. This behavior is strongly influenced by doping the P sites. Lattice stability of pure Fe2P and the effect of Si doping on the phase stability are pre-sented. In contrast to the observation, for the ferromagnetic state the hexagonal structure (hex, space group P62m) has no the lowest energy. For the paramagnetic state, the hex structure is shown to be the stable phase and the computed total energy versuscomposition indicates a hex to bco (body centered orthorhombic, space group Imm2)crystallographic phase transition with increasing Si content. The mechanisms responsi-ble for the structural phase transition are discussed in details. The magnetic properties of Fe2P can be subtly tailored by Mn doping. It was shown experimentally that Mn atoms preferentially occupy one of the two different Fe sites of Fe2P. Theoretical results for the Mn site occupancy in MnFeP1−xSix are presented. The single crystal elastic constants, the polycrystalline elastic moduli and the Debye temperature of disordered Pd1−xAgx binary alloys are calculated for the whole range of concentration, 0 ≤ x ≤ 1. It is shown that the variation of the elastic parameters of Pd-Ag alloys with chemical composition strongly deviates from the simple linear trend. The complex electronic origin of these anomalies is demonstrated. The effect of long range order on the single crystal elastic constants of Pd0.5Ag0.5 alloy is also investigated. Within this thesis most of the calculations were performed using the Exact Muffin-Tin Orbitals method. The chemical and magnetic disorder are treated via the Coherent Potential Approximation. The paramagnetic phase is modeled by the Disordered Local Magnetic Moments approach.
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| 5. |
- Johansson, Robert, 1983-
(author)
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Metal Hydrogen Interaction and Structural Characterization of Amorphous Materials from first principles
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this thesis, first-principles calculations based on density functional theory have been employed to investigate metal hydrogen interaction in transition, p-block and rare earth metals. Furthermore, the accuracy of the stochastic quenching method was tested in describing the structure of amorphous Fe(1-x)Zrx.The investigated systems of transition metal hydrides are V-H and ScZr(CoNi)2-H. For V-H, the main focus of the studies is the effect that strain has on the potential energy landscape which governs the metal hydrogen interactions. The investigation has focused on how the properties of hydrogen occupancy in the interstitial sites changes with strain and also how the hydrogen atoms themselves exert strain on the vanadium structure to lower the energy. Results on diffusion, induced strain and zero-point energy are presented which all reveal the considerable difference between tetrahedral and octahedral site occupancy. Diffusion was studied by employing ab initio molecular dynamics simulations to obtain diffusion coefficients and to map the movement of the hydrogen atom. A description of hydrogen in vanadium is provided from a fundamental basis that is expected to be applicable to any lattice gas system. For ScZr(CoNi)2-H, the difference of hydrogen occupancy in various interstitial sites and the hydrogen-induced strain was also investigated through calculations of the change in total volume as a function of hydrogen concentration.The fundamental properties of metal hydrogen bonding were investigated by studying the Zintl phase hydrides that are constituted of the electropositive metal of Nd or Gd and the electronegative metal Ga. Mixing metals of very different electronegativity gives rise to an intricate potential energy landscape in which the incorporation of hydrogen will have a big effect on both the electronic and atomic structure. From the theoretical side of the investigation, structural parameters are presented along with the density of states and Bader charge analysis to describe the hydrogen induced changes to the atomic and electronic structures.Finally, the accuracy of the stochastic quenching method in describing amorphous Fe(1-x)Zrx was evaluated by comparing simulated and measured EXAFS spectra. Once the structural agreement had been established the simulated structures were characterized through radial distribution functions and an analysis of the short-range order from Voronoi tessellation. The structural changes with respect to the composition parameter x were also evaluated.
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| 6. |
- Khmelevskyi, Sergii, et al.
(author)
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Magnetic ordering and exchange interactions in structural modifications of Mn3Ga alloys : Interplay of frustration, atomic order, and off-stoichiometry
- 2016
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In: Physical Review B. - : American Physical Society. - 2469-9950. ; 93:18
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Mn-Ga alloys close to the Mn3Ga stoichiometry can be synthesized in three different crystal modifications: hexagonal, tetragonal, and face-centered cubic, both in bulk and in thin-film forms. The magnetic ordering of these modifications is varying from noncollinear antiferromagnetic in the hexagonal case to ferrimagnetic order in the tetragonal one, whereas it is still unknown for the atomically disordered fcc structure. Here we study the onset of magnetic order at finite temperatures in these systems on a first-principles basis calculating the interatomic magnetic exchange interactions in the high-temperature paramagnetic regime. We employ the disordered local moment formalism and the magnetic force theorem within the framework of the local spin-density approximation and Monte Carlo simulations taking also the effects of atomic disorder in fcc alloys into account. In particular we find the origin of the stabilization of the noncollinear 3k structure in competition between antiferromagnetic inter- and in-plane couplings of frustrated kagome planes in hexagonal Mn3Ga and predict the antiferromagnetic-1 collinear order due to frustration in fcc alloys. Special attention is paid to the effects of the off-stoichiometry and the consequences of atomic disorder. We calculate the site-preference energy of Ga antisite atoms in the tetragonal structures in the range of the compositions from Mn3Ga to Mn2Ga and slightly beyond and confirm the earlier explanation of the effect of magnetization increase due to Ga preferentially occupying one of the Mn sites.
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| 7. |
- Liot, François
(author)
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Thermal Expansion and Local Environment Effects in Ferromagnetic Iron-Based Alloys : A Theoretical Study
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The Nobel Prize for Physics 1920 was awarded to C.-E. Guillaume for his discovery of properties of nickel steels. He had previously observed that certain iron-nickel alloys exhibit the Invar effect i.e. an extremely low thermal expansion coefficient over a wide range of temperature. The decades since then have seen the observation of similar phenomena in other iron-based materials such as iron-platinum and iron-palladium. Moreover, there has been a great deal of theoretical work on the mechanism behind the Invar anomaly in the above-mentioned systems. However, despite many years of intensive research, a widely accepted microscopic theory of the effects is still lacking.The present thesis aims at providing an insight into the physical nature of the thermal expansion of ferromagnetic random face-centered cubic iron-nickel, ironplatinum and iron-palladium bulk solids.First, the thermal expansion coefficient is modeled as a function of temperature. The theory relies on the disordered local moment (DLM) formalism. However, contrary to all the previous models, the mapping between equilibrium states and partially disordered local moment (PDLM) states involves the probability that an iron-iron nearest-neighbour pair shows anti-parallel local magnetic moments, and the average lattice constant of the system at a finite temperature is calculated by minimization of an energy. The approach is applied to iron-nickel alloys. The model qualitatively reproduces several experimentally observed properties of disordered fcc iron-nickel solids. This includes Guillaume’s famous plot of the thermal expansion coefficient at room temperature as a function of concentration.Second, for the purpose of studying the origin of the anomalous expansion, the anomalous and normal contributions to the thermal expansion coefficient are defined, then evaluated for iron-nickel alloys. The results support the idea that the peculiar behaviour of the expansivity, , originates solely from the anomalous contribution,αa.Subsequently, the anomalous contribution is modeled for iron-nickel systems. In formulating the model, the following observation is taken into account; the average lattice spacing of an Fe100−xNix alloy at temperature T in a partially disordered local moment state is strongly negatively correlated with the probability that a nearest-neighbour pair has each of its two sites occupied by an iron atom and exhibits anti-ferromagnetically aligned magnetic moments (XFFAP). The quantity αa(x, T ) is estimated for several couples of values of the parameters x and T . Model results are found to agree qualitatively and quantitatively well with data obtained from the definition of αa. Thus, the model can successfully explain the basic process leading to the anomalous thermal expansion. It is consistent with the theory that the coefficient αa is controlled by the temperature derivative of XFFAP. Finally, the anomalous contribution to the thermal expansion coefficient of Fe72Pt28 and Fe66Pd34 solids is modeled as that of Fe65Ni35. A good agreement between the model results and experimental data for the expansivity as a function of temperature is noted. In conclusion, the Invar effects in disordered fcc iron-nickel, iron-platinum and iron-palladium alloys may have a common origin.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Lizzaraga, R., et al.
(author)
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Conditions for Noncollinear Instabilities of Ferromagnetic Materials
- 2004
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In: Physical Review Letters. - : American Physical Society (APS). - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 93:10, s. 107205-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Two criteria have been identified here which determine whether a magnetic metal orders in a collinear (e.g., ferromagnet) or noncollinear (e.g., spin-spiral) arrangement. These criteria involve the ratio between the strength of the exchange interaction and the width of the electron bands, as well as Fermi-surface nesting between spin-up and spin-down sheets of the Fermi surface. Based on our analysis we predict that even typical ferromagnetic materials (e.g., Fe, Co, and Ni) should be possible to stabilize in a noncollinear magnetic order in, e.g., high pressure experiments.
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| 10. |
- Ruban, Andrei V., et al.
(author)
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Magnetic state, magnetovolume effects, and atomic order in Fe65Ni35 Invar alloy : A first principles study
- 2007
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In: Physical Review B. Condensed Matter and Materials Physics. - 1098-0121 .- 1550-235X. ; 76:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We employ the locally self-consistent Green's function technique and exact muffin-tin orbital method to investigate magnetic state and ground state properties of Invar Fe65Ni35 alloy. We show that it is in a chemically disordered state, characterized by a relatively small amount of atomic short-range order, above the magnetic ordering temperature. We speculate that it should remain in this state below the Curie temperature upon applying usual heat treatment for the Invar alloys. The magnetic state at the experimental lattice spacing is shown to be sensitive to the type of approximation for the exchange-correlation functional: While the magnetic ground state is purely ferromagnetic in the generalized gradient approximation, there is a small amount of Fe atoms with magnetic moment antiferromagnetically aligned relative to the global magnetization in the local density approximations. The local spin-density approximation, however, fails to yield correctly the equilibrium lattice spacing, whereas the generalized gradient approximation reproduces it reasonably well. The anomalous spontaneous volume magnetostriction leading to the Invar effect is found to be approximate to 3%, in fair agreement with the experimental estimate of approximate to 2.2%.
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