Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “DFT Calculations”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Understanding the Effect of Single Atom Cationic Defect Sites in an Al 2 O 3 (012) Surface on Altering Selenate and Sulfate Adsorption: An Ab Initio Study

Adsorption is a promising under-the-sink selenate remediation technique for distributed water systems. Recently it was shown that adsorption induced water network rearrangement control adsorption energetics on the α-Al 2 O 3 (012) surface. Here, we aim to elucidate the relative importance of the water network effects and surface cation identity on controlling selenate and sulfate adsorption energy using density functional theory calculations. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations predicted the adsorption energies of selenate and sulfate on nine transition metal cations (Sc–Cu) and two alkali metal cations (Ga and In) in the α-Al 2 O 3 (012) surface under simulated acidic and neutral pH conditions. We find that the water network effects had a larger impact on the adsorption energy than the cationic identity. However, cation identity secondarily controlled adsorption. Most cations decreased the adsorption energy, weakening the overall performance, the larger Sc and In cations enabled inner-sphere adsorption in acidic conditions because they relaxed outward from the surface, providing more space for adsorption. Additionally, only Ti induced Se selectivity over S by reducing the adsorbing selenate to selenite but not reducing the sulfate. Altogether, this study indicates that tuning water network structure will likely have a larger impact than tuning cation–selenate interactions for increasing adsorbate effectiveness.

Adsorption↗
DOE OSTI2023

Polarization consistent dielectric screening in polarizable continuum model calculations of solvation energies

A polarization consistent framework, where dielectric screening is affected consistently in polarizable continuum model (PCM) calculations, is employed for the study of solvation energies. The computational framework combines a screened range-separated-hybrid functional (SRSH) with PCM calculations, SRSH-PCM, where dielectric screening is imposed in both PCM self-consistent reaction field (SCRF) iterations and the electronic structure Hamiltonian. We begin by demonstrating the impact of modifying the Hamiltonian to include such dielectric screening in SCRF iterations by considering the solutions of electrostatically embedded Hartree–Fock (HF) exact exchange equations. Long-range screened HF-PCM calculations are shown to capture properly the linear dependence of gap energy of frontier orbitals on the inverse of the dielectric constant, whereas unscreened HF-PCM orbital energies are fallaciously semi-constant with respect to the dielectric constant and, therefore, inconsistent with the ionization energy gaps. Similar trends affect density functional theory (DFT) calculations that aim to achieve predictive quality. Importantly, the dielectric screened calculations are shown to significantly affect DFT- and HF PCM-based solvation energies, where screened solvation energies are smaller compared to the unscreened values. Importantly, SRSH-PCM, therefore, appears to reduce the tendency of DFT-PCM to overestimate solvation energies, where we find the effect to increase with the dielectric constant and the polarity of the molecular solute, trends that enhance the quality of DFT-PCM calculations of solvation energy. Understanding the relationship of dielectric screening in the Hamiltonian and DFT-PCM calculations can ultimately benefit on-going efforts for the design of predictive and parameter free descriptions of solvation energies.

Chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2025

Kohn anomalies and phonon anharmonicity in iridium

Elemental iridium presents surprising challenges for both inelastic neutron scattering (INS) and theoretical thermal transport calculations due to its high neutron absorption cross-section and strong electron-phonon interactions, respectively. Here, in this study, we overcome these challenges to measure temperature-dependent phonon dispersion curves, compare these with calculations based on density functional theory (DFT), and ultimately examine the electron-phonon limited transport behaviors of this material. Our DFT calculations demonstrate Kohn anomalies, near the 𝐾 point of the iridium Brillouin zone, indicating coupling between electrons and phonons. Strong electron-phonon coupling can compete with anharmonic effects to determine electrical and thermal transport behaviors and make the Kohn anomalies challenging to observe. Nonetheless, our INS measurements map these anomalies and other dispersion features over the Brillouin zone from 100 to 700 K. These measurements also uncover unexpectedly large mode specific Grüneisen parameters obtained from the temperature-dependent phonon energies, highlighting strong anharmonicity in iridium. DFT-based Boltzmann transport calculations demonstrate how anharmonicity and electron-phonon couplings determine electronic and lattice transport behaviors. Furthermore, we correlate the Kohn anomalies with calculated electron-phonon nesting functions, Fermi surfaces, and DFT-derived coupling strengths. This study provides detailed insights into the temperature-dependent mode-resolved lattice dynamics and anharmonicity, transport behavior, and electron-phonon interactions.

DFT↗
DOE OSTI2021

Predicting Hugoniot equation of state in erythritol with ab initio and reactive molecular dynamics

Erythritol has been proposed as an inert surrogate for developing theoretical and computational models to study aging in energetic materials. In this work, we present a comparison of mechanical and shock properties of erythritol computed using the ReaxFF reactive force field and from ab initio calculations employing density functional theory (DFT). We screened eight different ReaxFF parameterizations, of which the CHO parameters developed for hydrocarbon oxidation provide the most accurate predictions of mechanical properties and the crystal structure of erythritol. Further validation of the applicability of this ReaxFF parameterization for modeling erythritol is demonstrated by comparing predictions of the elastic constants, crystal structure, vibrational density of states, and Hugoniot curves against DFT calculations. The ReaxFF predictions are in close agreement with the DFT simulations for the elastic constants and shock Hugoniot when the crystal is loaded along its c axis but show as much as 30% disagreement in the elastic constants in the ab plane and 12% difference in shock pressures when shocked along the a or b crystal axes. Last, we compare thermomechanical properties predicted from classical molecular dynamics with those calculated using the quasi-harmonic approximation and show that quantum mechanical effects produce large discrepancies in the computed values of heat capacity and thermal expansion coefficients compared with classical assumptions. Combining classical molecular dynamics predictions of mechanical behavior with phonon-based calculations of thermal behaviors, we show that predicted shock-induced temperatures for pressures up to 6.5 GPa do not exceed the pressure-dependent melting point of erythritol.

Hu, Jing↗
DOE OSTI2020

Bypassing the Energy Functional in Density Functional Theory: Direct Calculation of Electronic Energies from Conditional Probability Densities

Density functional calculations can fail for want of an accurate exchange-correlation approximation. The energy can instead be extracted from a sequence of density functional calculations of conditional probabilities (CP DFT). Simple CP approximations yield usefully accurate results for two-electron ions, the hydrogen dimer, and the uniform gas at all temperatures. CP DFT has no self-interaction error for one electron, and correctly dissociates H2, both major challenges. For warm dense matter, classical CP DFT calculations can overcome the convergence problems of Kohn-Sham DFT.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2026

HfTi_BCC_SolidSolution_128atoms_VASP6

We performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations for body-centered-cubic (BCC) structures with 128 lattices sites of solid solution binary alloys hafnium-titanium (Hf-Ti). The electronic structures of alloys have been calculated using Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP). Within this package the DFT approach is used to reduce many-body Schrodinger equation to set of single particle Kohn-Sham (KS) equations. The generalized electronic exchange-correlation functional is described by generalized gradient approximation with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof parametrization. The electron-ion interactions is described by pseudopotentials developed within the plane-wave basis projector augmented-wave (PAW) approach. These pseudopotentials are available at the VASP portal (http://cms.mpi.univie.ac.at/vasp/). Our calculations have been run with the pseudopotentials treating s and p semi-core states as valence in case for the elements Hf and Ti. The electronic densities and potentials are expanded over plane-waves with energy cutoff of 350 eV. 2x2x2 k-mesh and normal precision were used. The alloys were modeled by supercell containing 128 randomly distributed atoms. At initial step the atoms occupy perfect bcc lattice cites. This initial structure was optimized until energy changes less than 1e-6 eV, while forces acting on atoms don't exceed 1e-2 eV/angstrom. The electron-ion interaction is described by PAW pseudopotentials. The calculations have been collected by sampling chemical compositions across the entire compositional range. The chemical compositions have been sampled by progressively changing the number of atoms per constituent by 4. For each chemical composition of binaries and ternaries, the first-principle calculations have been run for 100 randomized arrangements of the constituents on the BCC lattice sites. We collected data for a total of 3,100 randomized atomic structures over 31 chemical compositions. The calculations have been collected on Air Force HPC11 cluster using the VASP 6.5.1. Additional methodology and file structure information is available in the dataset README.txt file.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

TiV_BCC_SolidSolution_128atoms_VASP6

We performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations for body-centered-cubic (BCC) structures with 128 lattices sites of solid solution binary alloys titanium-vanadium (Ti-V). The electronic structures of alloys have been calculated using Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP). Within this package the DFT approach is used to reduce many-body Schrodinger equation to set of single particle Kohn-Sham (KS) equations. The generalized electronic exchange-correlation functional is described by generalized gradient approximation with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof parametrization. The electron-ion interactions is described by pseudopotentials developed within the plane-wave basis projector augmented-wave (PAW) approach. These pseudopotentials are available at the VASP portal (http://cms.mpi.univie.ac.at/vasp/). Our calculations have been run with the pseudopotentials treating s and p semi-core states as valence in case for the elements Ti and V. The electronic densities and potentials are expanded over plane-waves with energy cutoff of 350 eV. 2x2x2 k-mesh and normal precision were used. The alloys were modeled by supercell containing 128 randomly distributed atoms. At initial step the atoms occupy perfect bcc lattice cites. This initial structure was optimized until energy changes less than 1e-6 eV, while forces acting on atoms don't exceed 1e-2 eV/angstrom. The electron-ion interaction is described by PAW pseudopotentials. The calculations have been collected by sampling chemical compositions across the entire compositional range. The chemical compositions have been sampled by progressively changing the number of atoms per constituent by 4. For each chemical composition of binaries and ternaries, the first-principle calculations have been run for 100 randomized arrangements of the constituents on the BCC lattice sites. We collected data for a total of 3,100 randomized atomic structures over 31 chemical compositions. The calculations have been collected on Air Force HPC11 cluster using the VASP 6.5.1. Additional methodology and file structure information is available in the dataset README.txt file.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

HfZr_BCC_SolidSolution_128atoms_VASP6

We performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations for body-centered-cubic (BCC) structures with 128 lattices sites of solid solution binary alloys hafnium-zirconium (Hf-Zr). The electronic structures of alloys have been calculated using Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP). Within this package the DFT approach is used to reduce many-body Schrodinger equation to set of single particle Kohn-Sham (KS) equations. The generalized electronic exchange-correlation functional is described by generalized gradient approximation with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof parametrization. The electron-ion interactions is described by pseudopotentials developed within the plane-wave basis projector augmented-wave (PAW) approach. These pseudopotentials are available at the VASP portal (http://cms.mpi.univie.ac.at/vasp/). Our calculations have been run with the pseudopotentials treating s and p semi-core states as valence in case for the elements Hf and Zr. The electronic densities and potentials are expanded over plane-waves with energy cutoff of 350 eV. 2x2x2 k-mesh and normal precision were used. The alloys were modeled by supercell containing 128 randomly distributed atoms. At initial step the atoms occupy perfect bcc lattice cites. This initial structure was optimized until energy changes less than 1e-6 eV, while forces acting on atoms don't exceed 1e-2 eV/angstrom. The electron-ion interaction is described by PAW pseudopotentials. The calculations have been collected by sampling chemical compositions across the entire compositional range. The chemical compositions have been sampled by progressively changing the number of atoms per constituent by 4. For each chemical composition of binaries and ternaries, the first-principle calculations have been run for 100 randomized arrangements of the constituents on the BCC lattice sites. We collected data for a total of 3,100 randomized atomic structures over 31 chemical compositions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

HfTa_BCC_SolidSolution_128atoms_VASP6

We performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations for body-centered-cubic (BCC) structures with 128 lattices sites of solid solution binary alloys hafnium-tantalum (Hf-Ta). The electronic structures of alloys have been calculated using Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP). Within this package the DFT approach is used to reduce many-body Schrodinger equation to set of single particle Kohn-Sham (KS) equations. The generalized electronic exchange-correlation functional is described by generalized gradient approximation with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof parametrization. The electron-ion interactions is described by pseudopotentials developed within the plane-wave basis projector augmented-wave (PAW) approach. These pseudopotentials are available at the VASP portal (http://cms.mpi.univie.ac.at/vasp/). Our calculations have been run with the pseudopotentials treating s and p semi-core states as valence in case for the elements Hf and Ta. The electronic densities and potentials are expanded over plane-waves with energy cutoff of 350 eV. 2x2x2 k-mesh and normal precision were used. The alloys were modeled by supercell containing 128 randomly distributed atoms. At initial step the atoms occupy perfect BCC lattice sites. This initial structure was optimized until energy changes less than 1e-6 eV, while forces acting on atoms don't exceed 1e-2 eV/angstrom. The electron-ion interaction is described by PAW pseudopotentials. The calculations have been collected by sampling chemical compositions across the entire compositional range. The chemical compositions have been sampled by progressively changing the number of atoms per constituent by 4. For each chemical composition of binaries and ternaries, the first-principle calculations have been run for 100 randomized arrangements of the constituents on the BCC lattice sites. We collected data for a total of 3,040 randomized atomic structures over 31 chemical compositions. Further methodological and structural information is contained in the dataset README.txt file.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

First-principles investigation of lanthanides diffusion in HCP zirconium via vacancy-mediated transport

The diffusion of lanthanide fission products plays an important role in the growth of the fuel-cladding chemical interaction (FCCI) region in metallic fuels. The use of a Zr interdiffusion barrier may mitigate the transport of lanthanides from the fuel to the cladding, but the efficacy of such a liner is not yet known. In this paper, the stability and vacancy-mediated diffusion of La, Ce, Pr, and Nd in hexagonal close-packed (HCP) Zr is investigated via density functional theory (DFT) calculations and self-consistent mean field (SCMF) analysis. DFT is used to calculate the formation, binding, and migration energies of vacancies and vacancy-solute pairs. The DFT energetics are used in the KineCluE code to calculate the Onsager transport coefficients. La is found to be the fastest diffusing species in HCP Zr and experiences an almost isotropic diffusion behavior. The other three species (Ce, Pr, and Nd) demonstrate anisotropic diffusion where the diffusion in the basal planes is significantly faster than that along the c-axis. Further, the calculated lanthanide diffusivities in HCP Zr are fitted to an Arrhenius relation and the activation energies and prefactors are reported for the first time. Furthermore, the vacancy drag and the segregation tendencies were analyzed using the calculated off-diagonal transport coefficients. According to our vacancy-mediated diffusion model, lanthanides are expected to be enriched at vacancy sinks at low temperatures, while at high temperatures, lanthanides are depleted at sinks and will preferably diffuse into the bulk. The enrichment/depletion transition temperature depends on the diffusion direction (basal or axial) and hence will be controlled by the grain texture and orientation.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
NASA NTRS2004

Theoretical Investigation of OCN(-) Charge Transfer Complexes in Condensed Phase Media: Spectroscopic Properties in Amorphous Ice

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations of cyanate (OCN(-)) charge-transfer complexes were performed to model the "XCN" feature observed in interstellar icy grain mantles. OCN(-) charge-transfer complexes were formed from precursor combinations of HNCO or HOCN with either NH3 or H2O. Three different solvation strategies for realistically modeling the ice matrix environment were explored, including (1) continuum solvation, (2) pure DFT cluster calculations, and (3) an ONIOM DFT/PM3 cluster calculation. The model complexes were evaluated by their ability to reproduce seven spectroscopic measurements associated with XCN: the band origin of the OCN(-) asymmetric stretching mode, shifts in that frequency due to isotopic substitutions of C, N, O, and H, plus two weak features. The continuum solvent field method produced results consistent with some of the experimental data but failed to account for other behavior due to its limited capacity to describe molecular interactions with solvent. DFT cluster calculations successfully reproduced the available spectroscopic measurements very well. In particular, the deuterium shift showed excellent agreement in complexes where OCN(-) was fully solvated. Detailed studies of representative complexes including from two to twelve water molecules allowed the exploration of various possible solvation structures and provided insights into solvation trends. Moreover, complexes arising from cyanic or isocyanic acid in pure water suggested an alternative mechanism for the formation of OCN(-) charge-transfer complexes without the need for a strong base such as NH3 to be present. An extended ONIOM (B3LYP/PM3) cluster calculation was also performed to assess the impact of a more realistic environment on HNCO dissociation in pure water.

Park, Jin-Young↗
DOE OSTI2023

Effect of hydrogen on plasticity of $α$-Fe: A multi-scale assessment

A multi-scale study was carried out to quantify the effect of interstitial hydrogen concentration on plasticity in $α$-Fe. Here, in this work, the influence of hydrogen on the screw dislocation glide behavior was examined across several length-scales. The insights obtained were integrated to provide an accurate continuum description for the effect of hydrogen on the dislocation based plasticity in polycrystalline $α$-Fe. At the outset of this work, a new Fe—H interatomic potential was formulated that enhanced the atomistic estimation of the variation in dislocation glide behavior in presence of hydrogen. Next, the dislocation core reconstruction observed due to the addition of hydrogen using atomistic simulations was validated with the help of large-scale DFT calculations based on the DFT-FE framework. Several atomistic simulations were carried out to comprehensively quantify the effect of hydrogen on the non-Schmid behavior exhibited during the dislocation glide in $α$-Fe. Finally, crystal plasticity simulations were carried out to understand the effect of hydrogen on the meso-scale deformation behavior of polycrystalline $α$-Fe.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

A Robust Methodology to Elucidate Kinetics of Room Temperature Electrochemical Propane Adsorption on Platinum

Electrocatalytic activation of alkanes can further decarbonize chemical manufacturing by leveraging affordable renewable electricity and readily available shale gas reserves in the United States. Earlier works have identified the unique role of Pt in adsorbing and activating alkanes, like propane, at room temperature in acidic, aqueous electrolytes, revealing spontaneous formation of deeply dehydrogenated propane-derived surface species with an intact C 3 - backbone. Although an adsorption mechanism was hypothesized, it has not been explicitly investigated to date, preventing the quantification of kinetic rate parameters. A robust methodology to investigate and benchmark propane adsorption kinetics on Pt is critical for the rational design of electrocatalysts that exhibit higher selectivity toward desired partially oxidized products. Herein, we analyze an oxidative current transience that appears during the adsorption of propane on Pt in aqueous electrochemical conditions and develop a methodology that elucidates the adsorption mechanism and enables quantification of rate parameters such as order dependences and apparent activation barriers. This method yields an expected first-order dependence with respect to propane concentration at low coverage and reveals a second-order dependence with respect to the concentration of surface active sites. Additionally, the apparent activation barrier for propane adsorption was calculated using an Arrhenius analysis of the current transience under temperature control. The experimentally measured activation barrier of 35 kJ mol –1 is in excellent agreement with the theoretical barrier calculated by density functional theory (DFT). The kinetic analysis was extended, via the use of transition state theory, to extract entropy and enthalpy of activation, yielding consistent results with the proposed two-step adsorption mechanism and DFT calculations. These results demonstrate reliable quantification of kinetic parameters for electrocatalytic activation of C–H bonds in alkanes that can be employed for rational catalyst development for a versatile range of electrocatalytic conditions.

alkane activation↗
DOE OSTI2021

Computational catalyst discovery: Active classification through myopic multiscale sampling

We report the recent boom in computational chemistry has enabled several projects aimed at discovering useful materials or catalysts. We acknowledge and address two recurring issues in the field of computational catalyst discovery. First, calculating macro-scale catalyst properties is not straightforward when using ensembles of atomic-scale calculations [e.g., density functional theory (DFT)]. We attempt to address this issue by creating a multi-scale model that estimates bulk catalyst activity using adsorption energy predictions from both DFT and machine learning models. The second issue is that many catalyst discovery efforts seek to optimize catalyst properties, but optimization is an inherently exploitative objective that is in tension with the explorative nature of early-stage discovery projects. In other words, why invest so much time finding a “best” catalyst when it is likely to fail for some other, unforeseen problem? We address this issue by relaxing the catalyst discovery goal into a classification problem: “What is the set of catalysts that is worth testing experimentally?” Here, we present a catalyst discovery method called myopic multiscale sampling, which combines multiscale modeling with automated selection of DFT calculations. It is an active classification strategy that seeks to classify catalysts as “worth investigating” or “not worth investigating” experimentally. Our results show an ~7–16 times speedup in catalyst classification relative to random sampling. These results were based on offline simulations of our algorithm on two different datasets: a larger, synthesized dataset and a smaller, real dataset.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Progress Report for a 44-month Aging Study on Nitroplasticizer (NP) Stability - Summary of DFT and FTIR Results

In the past few years, a 44-month long aging experiment was conducted under various aging conditions. The properties of aged nitroplasticizer (NP) samples were analyzed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Karl Fischer (KF) titration, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), liquid chromatography tandem quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry (LC/QTOF), and ion chromatography (IC). In this progress report, some FTIR results are documented and discussed. On the theoretical front, density functional theory (DFT) calculations were carried out. Some DFT results are discussed as well.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

NbTi_BCC_SolidSolution_128atoms_VASP6

We performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations for body-centered-cubic (BCC) structures with 128 lattices sites of solid solution binary alloys niobium-titanium (Nb-Ti). The electronic structures of alloys have been calculated using Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP), https://github.com/ORNL/ScalableWorkflow_VASP_Calculations. Within this package the DFT approach is used to reduce many-body Schrodinger equation to set of single particle Kohn-Sham (KS) equations. The generalized electronic exchange-correlation functional is described by generalized gradient approximation with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof parametrization. The electron-ion interactions is described by pseudopotentials developed within the plane-wave basis projector augmented-wave (PAW) approach. These pseudopotentials are available at the VASP portal (http://cms.mpi.univie.ac.at/vasp/). Our calculations have been run with the pseudopotentials treating s and p semi-core states as valence in case for the elements Nb and Ti. The electronic densities and potentials are expanded over plane-waves with energy cutoff of 350 eV. 2x2x2 k-mesh and normal precision were used. The alloys were modeled by supercell containing 128 randomly distributed atoms. At initial step the atoms occupy perfect bcc lattice cites. This initial structure was optimized until energy changes less than 1e-6 eV, while forces acting on atoms don't exceed 1e-2 eV/angstrom. The electron-ion interaction is described by PAW pseudopotentials. The calculations have been collected by sampling chemical compositions across the entire compositional range. The chemical compositions have been sampled by progressively changing the number of atoms per constituent by 4. For each chemical composition of binaries and ternaries, the first-principle calculations have been run for 100 randomized arrangements of the constituents on the BCC lattice sites. We collected data for a total of 3,100 randomized atomic structures over 31 chemical compositions. The calculations have been collected on Air Force HPC11 cluster using the VASP 6.5.1. Additional methodology and file structure information is available in the dataset README.txt file.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Gaussian approximation potentials for accurate thermal properties of two-dimensional materials

Two-dimensional materials (2DMs) continue to attract a lot of attention, particularly for their extreme flexibility and superior thermal properties. Molecular dynamics simulations are among the most powerful methods for computing these properties, but their reliability depends on the accuracy of interatomic interactions. While first principles approaches provide the most accurate description of interatomic forces, they are computationally expensive. In contrast, classical force fields are computationally efficient, but have limited accuracy in interatomic force description. Machine learning interatomic potentials, such as Gaussian Approximation Potentials, trained on density functional theory (DFT) calculations offer a compromise by providing both accurate estimation and computational efficiency. Here, in this work, we present a systematic procedure to develop Gaussian approximation potentials for selected 2DMs, graphene, buckled silicene, and h-XN (X = B, Al, and Ga, as binary compounds) structures. We validate our approach through calculations that require various levels of accuracy in interatomic interactions. The calculated phonon dispersion curves and lattice thermal conductivity, obtained through harmonic and anharmonic force constants (including fourth order) are in excellent agreement with DFT results. HIPHIVE calculations, in which the generated GAP potentials were used to compute higher-order force constants instead of DFT, demonstrated the first-principles level accuracy of the potentials for interatomic force description. Molecular dynamics simulations based on phonon density of states calculations, which agree closely with DFT-based calculations, also show the success of the generated potentials in high-temperature simulations.

2D Materials↗
DOE OSTI2020

Hole Polaron Transport in Bismuth Vanadate BiVO 4 from Hybrid Density Functional Theory

In this paper, we address the chemical character and the mobility of hole polarons in BiVO 4 (BVO). Two distinct structures for hole polarons in BVO have been reported in the literature to date. “Standard” hybrid density functional theory (DFT) calculations have predicted hole polarons to be (BiO 8 ) dodecahedron-centered polarons, while Hubbard U-DFT (DFT + U) calculations have predicted single oxygen atom-centered polarons. Resolving these contrasting findings is critical to validate theory in materials research. We investigated the structure of hole polarons in BVO using hybrid DFT with varying fractions (α) of the exact exchange interaction that enters hybrid functionals. For values of the fraction α, from α = 0.25 to α = 0.45, we obtained both structures, the h + (BiO 8 ) hole structure and the h + (O) hole structure. For the smaller values of α, the h + (BiO 8 ) structure is lower in energy, while for the larger values of α, the h+(O) structure is more stable. The piece-wise linearity of DFT energies E(q) with respect to a point defect charge q is maintained satisfactorily in all cases, although the deviation is the smallest for hybrid DFT with a small exact exchange fraction. For α = 0.25, we determined the diffusivity of h + (BiO 8 ) holes from the Marcus/Holstein two-state model. The activation barrier for Bi-to-Bi hops (ΔG # ~76 meV) and mobility (μ ~0.029 cm2 V –1 s –1 ) are found to be in close agreement with the published THz experimental data (ΔG # ~90 meV and μ exp ~0.02 cm2 V –1 s –1 , respectively). In h + (BiO 8 ) structures, nearly 25% of the hole charge and unpaired spin reside on the Bi atom and the rest is divided among the eight O atoms. The hole is best described as a Bi-centered hole, rather than a Bi 6s hole. In contrast, in h + (O) structures, about 75% of the unpaired spin population resides on the O atom. These findings suggest that if one wishes to resolve this theoretical dichotomy, there remains a need for further experimental characterization of hole polarons in BVO with techniques that could identify the oxidation state of Bi and O atoms in operando conditions and help validate theoretical results of structure and transport.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗