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Prendergast, David

Publications and source records attributed to Prendergast, David.

At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Investigating the Electronic Structure of Prospective Water-Splitting Oxide BaCe 0.25 Mn 0.75 O 3-δ before and after Thermal Reduction

BaCe 0.25 Mn 0.75 O 3-δ (BCM), a non-stoichiometric oxide with a layered perovskite-like crystal structure, has recently emerged as a prospective contender for application in renewable energy harvesting by solar thermochemical hydrogen generation. Using solar-thermal energy and a reducing environment, oxygen vacancies can be created in high-temperature BCM, and the reduced crystal so obtained can, in turn, produce H 2 by stripping oxygen from H 2 O. Therefore, a first step toward understanding the working mechanism and optimizing the performance of BCM is a thorough and comparative analysis of the electronic structure of the pristine and the reduced material. In this paper, we probe the electronic structure of BCM using the combined effort of first-principles calculations and experimental O K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). The computed projected density of states (PDOS) and orbital plots are used to propose a simplified model for orbital mixing between the oxygen and metal atoms. With the help of state-of-the-art simulations, we are able to find the origins of the XAS peaks and categorize them on the basis of contribution from Ce and Mn. For the reduced crystal, the calculations show that the change in electron density resulting from the reduction is strongly localized around the oxygen vacancy. Experimental measurements reveal a marked lowering of the first O K-edge peak in the reduced crystal. Using theoretical analysis, this is shown to result from lifting of spin degeneracy in the absorption peaks as well as from a diminished O 2p contribution to the frontier unoccupied orbitals, in accordance with the tight binding scheme. The simulated results serve as a reference for the extent of spectral change as a function of the percentage of oxygen vacancies in the reduced crystal. Here, our study paves the way for the investigation of the working mechanism of BCM and for computational and experimental efforts aimed at design and discovery of efficient water-splitting oxides.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2023

Efficient core-excited state orbital perspective on calculating x-ray absorption transitions in determinant framework

X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is an explicit probe of the unoccupied electronic structure of materials and an invaluable tool for fingerprinting various electronic properties and phenomena. Computational methods capable of simulating and analyzing such spectra are therefore in high demand for complementing experimental results and for extracting valuable insights therefrom. In particular, a recently proposed first-principles approach titled many-body XAS (MBXAS), which approximates the final (initial) state as a Slater determinant constructed from Kohn-Sham (KS) orbitals optimized in the absence (presence) of the relevant core electron has shown promising prospects in evaluating the transition amplitudes. In this article, we show that the MBXAS approach can be rederived using a transition operator expressed entirely in the basis of core-excited state KS orbitals and that this reformulation offers substantial practical and conceptual advantages. In addition to circumventing previous issues of convergence with respect to the number of unoccupied ground-state orbitals, the aforementioned representation reduces the computational expense by rendering the calculation of such orbitals unnecessary altogether. Furthermore, the reformulated approach also provides a direct pathway for comparing the many-body approximation with the so-called single-particle treatment and indicates the relative importance in observed XAS intensity of the relaxation of the valence occupied subspace induced by the core excitation. Finally, using the core-excited state basis, we define auxiliary orbitals for x-ray absorption and demonstrate their utility in explaining the spectral intensity by contrasting them with single-particle approximations to the excited state.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2022

Synchrotron-based techniques for characterizing STCH water-splitting materials

Understanding the role of oxygen vacancy–induced atomic and electronic structural changes to complex metal oxides during water-splitting processes is paramount to advancing the field of solar thermochemical hydrogen production (STCH). The formulation and confirmation of a mechanism for these types of chemical reactions necessitate a multifaceted experimental approach, featuring advanced structural characterization methods. Synchrotron X-ray techniques are essential to the rapidly advancing field of STCH in part due to properties such as high brilliance, high coherence, and variable energy that provide sensitivity, resolution, and rapid data acquisition times required for the characterization of complex metal oxides during water-splitting cycles. X-ray diffraction (XRD) is commonly used for determining the structures and phase purity of new materials synthesized by solid-state techniques and monitoring the structural integrity of oxides during water-splitting processes (e.g., oxygen vacancy–induced lattice expansion). X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is an element-specific technique and is sensitive to local atomic and electronic changes encountered around metal coordination centers during redox. While in operando measurements are desirable, the experimental conditions required for such measurements (high temperatures, controlled oxygen partial pressures, and H 2 O) practically necessitate in situ measurements that do not meet all operating conditions or ex situ measurements. Here, we highlight the application of synchrotron X-ray scattering and spectroscopic techniques using both in situ and ex situ measurements, emphasizing the advantages and limitations of each method as they relate to water-splitting processes. The best practices are discussed for preparing quenched states of reduction and performing synchrotron measurements, which focus on XRD and XAS at soft (e.g., oxygen K-edge, transition metal L-edges, and lanthanide M-edges) and hard (e.g., transition metal K-edges and lanthanide L-edges) X-ray energies. The X-ray absorption spectra of these complex oxides are a convolution of multiple contributions with accurate interpretation being contingent on computational methods. The state-of-the-art methods are discussed that enable peak positions and intensities to be related to material electronic and structural properties. Through careful experimental design, these studies can elucidate complex structure–property relationships as they pertain to nonstoichiometric water splitting. A survey of modern approaches for the evaluation of water-splitting materials at synchrotron sources under various experimental conditions is provided, and available software for data analysis is discussed.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2022

Excitonic Effects in X-ray Absorption Spectra of Fluoride Salts and Their Surfaces

Given their natural abundance and thermodynamic stability, fluoride salts may appear as evolving components of electrochemical interfaces in Li-ion batteries and emergent multivalent ion cells. This is due to the practice of employing electrolytes with fluorine-containing species (salt, solvent, or additives) that electrochemically decompose and deposit on the electrodes. Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) can probe the electrode–electrolyte interface with a single-digit nanometer depth resolution and offers a wealth of insights into the evolution and Coulombic efficiency or degradation of prototype cells, provided that the spectra can be reliably interpreted in terms of local oxidation state, atomic coordination, and electronic structure about the excited atoms. Here we explore fluorine K-edge XAS of mono- (Li, Na, and K) and di-valent (Mg, Ca, and Zn) fluoride salts from a theoretical standpoint and discover a surprising level of detailed electronic structure information about these materials despite the relatively predictable oxidation state and ionicity of the fluoride anion and the metal cation. Utilizing a recently developed many-body approach based on the ΔSCF method, we calculate the XAS using density functional theory and experimental spectral profiles are well reproduced despite some experimental discrepancies in energy alignment within the literature, which we can correct for in our simulations. We outline a general methodology to explain shifts in the main XAS peak energies in terms of a simple exciton model and explain line-shape differences resulting from the mixing of core-excited states with metal d character (for K and Ca specifically). Given ultimate applications to evolving interfaces, some understanding of the role of surfaces and their terminations in defining new spectral features is provided to indicate the sensitivity of such measurements to changes in interfacial chemistry.

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

Changes in polarization dictate necessary approximations for modeling electronic deexcitation intensity: Application to x-ray emission

Accurate simulation of electronic excitations and deexcitations are critical for complementing complex spectroscopic experiments and can provide validation to theoretical approaches. Here, using a generalized framework, we contrast the accuracy and validity of orbital-constrained and linear-response approaches that build upon Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) to simulate emission spectra of electronic origin and propose an efficient approximation, named many-body x-ray emission spectroscopy or MBXES, for simulating such processes. We show analytically as well as with computed examples that for electronic (de)excitation leading to an appreciable change in polarization (i.e., density rearrangement), the adiabatic approximation in a response-based formalism will be inadequate for the calculation of oscillator strength. Thus, such a change (e.g., in the net electrostatic dipole moment of a finite system) can be used as a metric for evaluating the applicability of the adiabatic response-based approach and can be particularly valuable in x-ray emission spectroscopy. On the other hand, MBXES, the flexible method introduced in this paper, can compute oscillator strengths accurately at a much lower computational expense on the basis of two DFT-based self-consistent field calculations. Using illustrative examples of emission spectra, the efficacy of the MBXES method is demonstrated by comparison with its parent theory, orbital-optimized DFT, and with experiments.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

X-ray absorption spectroscopy insights on the structure anisotropy and charge transfer in Chevrel Phase chalcogenides

Here, the electronic structure and local coordination of binary (Mo 6 T 8 ) and ternary Chevrel Phases (M x Mo 6 T 8 ) are investigated for a range of metal intercalant and chalcogen compositions. We evaluate differences in the Mo L 3 -edge and K-edge X-ray absorption near edge structure across the suite of chalcogenides M x Mo 6 T 8 (M = Cu, Ni, x = 1–2, T = S, Se, Te), quantifying the effect of compositional and structural modification on electronic structure. Furthermore, we highlight the expansion, contraction, and anisotropy of Mo 6 clusters within these Chevrel Phase frameworks through extended X-ray absorption fine structure analysis. Our results show that metal-to-cluster charge transfer upon intercalation is dominated by the chalcogen acceptors, evidenced by significant changes in their respective X-ray absorption spectra in comparison to relatively unaffected Mo cations. These results explain the effects of metal intercalation on the electronic and local structure of Chevrel Phases across various chalcogen compositions, and aid in rationalizing electron distribution within the structure.

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

Mechanistic Advantages of Organotin Molecular EUV Photoresists

Here, extreme ultraviolet (EUV)-induced radiation exposure chemistry in organotin-oxo systems, represented by the archetypal [(R-Sn) 12 O 14 (OH) 6 ](A) 2 cage, has been investigated with density functional theory. Upholding existing experimental evidence of Sn-C cleavage-dominant chemistry, computations have revealed that either electron attachment or ionization can single-handedly trigger tin-carbon bond cleavage, partially explaining the current EUV sensitivity advantage of metal oxide systems. We have revealed that tin atoms at different parts of the molecule react differently to ionization and electron attachment and have identified such selectivity as a result of local coordination chemistry instead of the macro geometry of the molecule. An ionization-deprotonation pathway has also been identified to explain the observed evolution of an anion conjugate acid upon exposure and anion mass dependence in resist sensitivity.

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗