Xu Guo-Liang

First-Principles Calculations of Elastic and Thermal Properties of Lanthanum Hexaboride

The plane-wave pseudopotential method using the generalized gradient approximation within the framework of density functional theory is applied to anaylse the bulk modulus, thermal expansion coefficient and heat capacity of LaB6. The quasi-harmonic Debye model, using a set of total energy versus volume obtained with the plane-wave pseudopotential method, is applied to the study of the thermal properties and vibrational effects. We analyse the bulk modulus of LaB6 up to 1500 K. The elastic properties calculations show that our system is mechanically stable. For the heat capacity and the thermal expansion, significant differences in properties are observed above 300K. The calculated zero pressure bulk modulus is in good agreement with the experimental data. Moreover, the Debye temperatures are determined from the non-equilibrium Gibbs functions and compared to available data.

Theoretical Study of Elastic Properties of Tungsten Disilicide

The plane-wave pseudopotential method using the generalized gradient approximation within the framework of density functional theory is applied to analyse the lattice parameters, elastic constants, bulk moduli, shear moduli and Youngs moduli of WSi2. The quasi-harmonic Debye model, using a set of total energy versus cell volume obtained with the plane-wave pseudopotential method, is applied to the study of the elastic properties and vibrational effects. The athermal elastic constants of WSi2 are calculated as a function of pressure up to 35 GPa. The relationship between bulk modulus and temperature up to 1200 K is also obtained. Moreover, the Debye temperature is determined from the non-equilibrium Gibbs function. The calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental data.

First-principles calculation of elastic and thermodynamic properties of Ni2MnGa Heusler alloy

The equilibrium lattice parameter, heat capacity, thermal expansion coefficient and bulk modulus of Ni2MnGa Heusler alloy are successfully obtained using the first-principles plane-wave pseudopotential (PW-PP) method as well as the quasi-harmonic Debye model. We analyse the relationship between bulk modulus B and temperature T up to 800 K and obtain the relationship between bulk modulus B and pressure at different temperatures. It is found that the bulk modulus B increases monotonically with increasing pressure and decreases with increasing temperature. The pressure dependence of heat capacity Cv and thermal expansion α at various temperatures are also analysed. Finally, the Debye temperature of Ni2MnGa is determined from the non-equilibrium Gibbs function. Our calculated results are in excellent agreement with the experimental data.

First-Principles Calculations of Elastic Properties of LaNi5 Compound

The equilibrium lattice constants, temperature dependence of bulk modulus, the pressure dependence of the normalized volume V/V0, elastic constants Cij, and bulk modulus of LaNi5 crystal are obtained using the first-principles plane-wave pseudopotential method in the GGA-PBE generalized gradient approximation as well as the quasi-harmonic Debye model. We analyse the relationship between bulk modulus and temperature up to 1000 K and obtain the relationship between bulk modulus B and pressure at different temperatures. It is found that the bulk modulus B increases monotonously with increasing pressure. Moreover, the pressure dependences of Debye temperatures and the pressure derivatives of lattice constants are also successfully obtained. The calculated results are in agreement with the experimental data and the other theoretical results.

First principles study of the magnetism driven by cation defects in CeO2: the important role of O2p states

The magnetism driven by cation defects in undoped CeO2 bulk and thin films is studied by the density functional theory corrected for on-site Coulomb interactions (DFT+U) with U = 5 eV for the Ce4f states and U = 7 eV for the O2p states. It is found that the Ce vacancies can induce a magnetic moment of the ~ 4 μB/supercell, which arises mainly from the 2p hole state of the nearest neighbouring O atom (~ 1 μB on per oxygen) to the Ce vacancy. The effect of the methodology is investigated, indicating that U = 7 eV for the O2p state is necessary to obtain the localized O2p hole state in defective ceria with cation vacancies.

Properties of a Si2N molecule under an external electric field

In the present work, we adopt the ccsd/6-31g(d) method to optimize the ground state structure and calculate the vibrational frequency of the Si2N molecule. The calculated frequencies accord satisfactorily with the experimental values, which helps confirm the ground state structure of the molecule. In order to find how the external electric field affects the Si2N molecule, we use the density functional method B3P86/6-31g(d) to optimize the ground state structure and the time-dependent density functional theory TDDFT/6-31g(d) to study the absorption spectra, the excitation energies, the oscillator strengths, and the dipole moments of the Si2N molecule under different external electric fields. It is found that the absorption spectra, the excitation energies, the oscillator strengths, and the dipole moments of the Si2N molecule are affected by the external electric field. One of the valuable results is that the absorption spectra of the yellow and the blue-violet light of the Si2N molecule each have a red shift under the electric field. The luminescence mechanism in the visible light region of the Si2N molecule is also investigated and compared with the experimental data.

First-Principles Calculations of Elastic and Thermal Properties of Molybdenum Disilicide

The first-principles plane-wave pseudopotential method using the generalized gradient approximation within the framework of density functional theory is applied to anaylse the equilibrium lattice parameters, six independent elastic constants, bulk moduli, thermal expansions and heat capacities of MoSi2. The quasi-harmonic Debye model, using a set of total energy versus cell volume obtained with the plane-wave pseudopotential method, is applied to the study of the elastic properties, thermodynamic properties and vibrational effects. The calculated zero pressure elastic constants are in overall good agreement with the experimental data. The calculated heat capacities and the thermal expansions agree well with the observed values under ambient conditions and those calculated by others. The results show that the temperature has hardly any effect under high pressure.

Pseudo-potential investigations of structural, elastic and thermal properties of tungsten disilicide

The plane-wave pseudopotential method using the generalized gradient approximation within the density functional theory is used to investigate the structure and bulk modulus of WSi2. The quasi-harmonic Debye model, using a set of total energy versus cell volume obtained with the plane-wave pseudopotential method, is applied to the study of the elastic properties and vibrational efiects. We have analysed the bulk modulus of WSi2 up to 1600 K. The major trend shows that the WSi2 crystal becomes more compressible when the temperature rises and the increase of compressibility leads to the decrease of Debye temperature. The predicted temperature and pressure efiects on the thermal expansion, heat capacity and Debye temperatures are determined from the non-equilibrium Gibbs functions and compared with the data available.

A theoretical study of the stereodynamics on the abstraction reactions H/D + HS/DS

The quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) method is employed to calculate the stereodynamics of the abstraction reactions H/D + HS/DS based on an accurate potential energy surface [Lu S J, Zhang P Y, Han K L and He G Z 2012 J. Chem. Phys. 136 094308]. The reaction cross sections of the title reaction are computed, and the vector correlations for different collision energies and different initial vibrational states are presented. The influences of the collision energy and reagent vibration on the product polarization are studied, and the product polarizations of the title reactions are found to be distinctly different, which arises from the different mass factors, collision energies, and reagent vibrational states.

Si3O cluster: excited properties under external electric field and oxygen-deficient defect models

This paper investigates the excited states of Si3O molecule by using the single-excitation configuration interaction and density functional theory. It finds that the visible light absorption spectrum of Si3O molecule comprises the yellow and the purple light without external electric field, however all the visible light is included except the green light under the action of external electric field. Oxygen-deficient defects, which also can be found in Si3O molecule, have been used to explain the luminescence from silicon-based materials but the microstructures of the materials are still uncertain. Our results accord with the experimental values perfectly, this fact suggests that the structure of Si3O molecule is expected to be one of the main basic structures of the materials, so the oxygen-deficient defect structural model for Si3O molecule also has been provided to research the structures of materials.