Direct subsurface absorption of hydrogen on Pd(111)

We summarize and discuss some of the available experimental and theoretical data important for understanding the role played by subsurface sites in dissociative chemisorption calculations for the H$_2$/Pd(111) system. Then we use a semi-empirical potential energy surface (PES) to model the interaction of a H$_2$ molecule impinging on a Pd(111) surface. The London-Eyring-Polanyi-Sato (LEPS) construction has been extended to make direct subsurface absorption possible. A 2-dimensional wave packet calculation is used to find qualitative trends in the direct subsurface absorption and to reveal the time scales involved. We suggest that a partial in-plane relaxation occurs for the slowest incoming particles, thus resulting in a higher direct subsurface absorption probability for low energies.Comment: Journal of Chemical Physics (in press), 19 pages, REVTeX, 4 Postscript figure

Theoretical analysis of oxygen vacancies in layered sodium cobaltate Na_xCoO_{2-\delta}

Sodium cobaltate with high Na content is a promising thermoelectric material. It has recently been reported that oxygen vacancies can alter the material properties, reducing its figure of merit. However, experimental data concerning the oxygen stoichiometry are contradictory. We therefore studied the formation of oxygen vacancies in Na_xCoO_2 with first principles calculations, focusing on x = 0.75. We show that a very low oxygen vacancy concentration is expected at the temperatures and partial pressures relevant for applications.Comment: 4 page

Lattice Thermal Conductivity from First Principles and Active Learning with Gaussian Process Regression

The lattice thermal conductivity ($\kappa_{\ell}$) is a key materials property in power electronics, thermal barriers, and thermoelectric devices. Identifying a wide pool of compounds with low $\kappa_{\ell}$ is particularly important in the development of materials with high thermoelectric efficiency. The present study contributed to this with a reliable machine learning (ML) model based on a training set consisting of 268 cubic compounds. For those, $\kappa_{\ell}$ was calculated from first principles using the temperature-dependent effective potential (TDEP) method based on forces and phonons calculated by density functional theory (DFT). 238 of these were preselected and used to train an initial ML model employing Gaussian process regression (GPR). The model was then improved with active learning (AL) by selecting the 30 compounds with the highest GPR uncertainty as new members of an expanded training set. This was used to predict $\kappa_{\ell}$ of the 1574 cubic compounds in the \textsc{Materials Project} (MP) database with a validation R2-score of 0.81 and Spearman correlation of 0.93. Out of these, 27 compounds were predicted to have very low values of $\kappa_{\ell}$ ($\leq 1.3$ at 300~K), which was verified by DFT calculations. Some of these have not previously been reported in the literature, suggesting further investigations of their electronic thermoelectric properties

Discarded gems: Thermoelectric performance of materials with band gap emerging at the hybrid-functional level

A finite electronic band gap is a standard filter in high-throughput screening of materials using density functional theory (DFT). However, because of the systematic underestimation of band gaps in standard DFT approximations, a number of compounds may be incorrectly predicted metallic. In a more accurate treatment, such materials may instead appear as low band gap materials and could have good thermoelectric properties if suitable doping is feasible. To explore this possibility, we performed hybrid functional calculations on 1093 cubic materials listed in the MATERIALS PROJECT database with four atoms in the primitive unit cell, spin-neutral ground state, and a formation energy within 0.3 eV of the convex hull. Out of these materials, we identified eight compounds for which a finite band gap emerges. Evaluating electronic and thermal transport properties of these compounds, we found the compositions MgSc2Hg and Li2CaSi to exhibit promising thermoelectric properties. These findings underline the potential of reassessing band gaps and band structures of compounds to identify additional potential thermoelectric materials.acceptedVersio

Screening of thermoelectric silicides with atomistic transport calculations

More than 1000 crystalline silicide materials have been screened for thermoelectric properties using first-principles atomistic calculations coupled with the semi-classical Boltzmann transport equation. Compounds that contain radioactive, toxic, rare, and expensive elements as well as oxides, hydrides, carbides, nitrides, and halides have been neglected in the study. The already well-known silicides with good thermoelectric properties, such as SiGe, Mg2Si, and MnSix, are successfully predicted to be promising compounds along with a number of other binary and ternary silicide compositions. Some of these materials have only been scarcely studied in the literature, with no thermoelectric properties being reported in experimental papers. These novel materials can be very interesting for thermoelectric applications provided that they can be heavily doped to give a sufficiently high charge carrier concentration and that they can be alloyed with isoelectronic elements to achieve adequately low phonon thermal conductivity. The study concludes with a list of the most promising silicide compounds that are recommended for further experimental and theoretical investigations.publishedVersio

Theoretical analysis of oxygen vacancies in layered sodium cobaltate Na_xCoO_{2-\delta}

Sodium cobaltate with high Na content is a promising thermoelectric material. It has recently been reported that oxygen vacancies can alter the material properties, reducing its figure of merit. However, experimental data concerning the oxygen stoichiometry are contradictory. We therefore studied the formation of oxygen vacancies in Na_xCoO_2 with first principles calculations, focusing on x = 0.75. We show that a very low oxygen vacancy concentration is expected at the temperatures and partial pressures relevant for applications.Comment: 4 page

Understanding adsorption of hydrogen atoms on graphene

Adsorption of hydrogen atoms on a single graphite sheet (graphene) has been investigated by first-principles electronic structure means, employing plane-wave based, periodic density functional theory. A reasonably large 5x5 surface unit cell has been employed to study single and multiple adsorption of H atoms. Binding and barrier energies for sequential sticking have been computed for a number of configurations involving adsorption on top of carbon atoms. We find that binding energies per atom range from ~0.8 eV to ~1.9 eV, with barriers to sticking in the range 0.0-0.2 eV. In addition, depending on the number and location of adsorbed hydrogen atoms, we find that magnetic structures may form in which spin density localizes on a $\sqrt{3}{x}\sqrt{3}{R}30^{\circ}$ sublattice, and that binding (barrier) energies for sequential adsorption increase (decrease) linearly with the site-integrated magnetization. These results can be rationalized with the help of the valence-bond resonance theory of planar $\pi$ conjugated systems, and suggest that preferential sticking due to barrierless adsorption is limited to formation of hydrogen pairs.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures and 4 table

Lattice thermal conductivity of Tix_xZry_yHf1−x−y_{1-x-y}NiSn half-Heusler alloys calculated from first principles: Key role of nature of phonon modes

In spite of their relatively high lattice thermal conductivity $\kappa_{\ell}$, the XNiSn (X=Ti, Zr or Hf) half-Heusler compounds are good thermoelectric materials. Previous studies have shown that $\kappa_{\ell}$ can be reduced by sublattice-alloying on the X-site. To cast light on how the alloy composition affects $\kappa_\ell$, we study this system using the phonon Boltzmann-transport equation within the relaxation time approximation in conjunction with density functional theory.The effect of alloying through mass-disorder scattering is explored using the virtual crystal approximation to screen the entire ternary Ti$_x$Zr$_{y}$Hf$_{1-x-y}$NiSn phase diagram. The lowest lattice thermal conductivity is found for the Ti$_x$Hf$_{1-x}$NiSn compositions; in particular, there is a shallow minimum centered at Ti$_{0.5}$Hf$_{0.5}$NiSn with $\kappa_l$ taking values between 3.2 and 4.1 W/mK when the Ti content varies between 20 and 80\%. Interestingly, the overall behavior of mass-disorder scattering in this system can only be understood from a combination of the nature of the phonon modes and the magnitude of the mass variance. Mass-disorder scattering is not effective at scattering acoustic phonons of low energy. By using a simple model of grain boundary scattering, we find that nanostructuring these compounds can scatter such phonons effectively and thus further reduce the lattice thermal conductivity; for instance, Ti$_{0.5}$Hf$_{0.5}$NiSn with a grain size of $L= 100$ nm experiences a 42\% reduction of $\kappa_{\ell}$ compared to that of the single crystal

Self-diffusion in Zn 4 Sb 3 from first-principles molecular dynamics

a b s t r a c t The Zn 4 Sb 3 system is promising for thermoelectric applications due to its very low thermal conductivity coupled with a good power factor. Molecular dynamics calculations based on density functional theory were carried out for different stoichiometries of Zn 4 Sb 3 , corresponding to three situations: the composition Zn 3.6 Sb 3 (actually Zn 6 Sb 5 with only one Zn site occupied), a slightly higher Zn content Zn 3.8 Sb 3 (with some of the Zn atoms in interstitial sites), and a slightly lower Zn content Zn 3.4 Sb 3 (with some Zn vacancies). The diffusivity was calculated for different temperatures and the diffusion coefficient plotted in Arrhenius plots. The results compare well with experimental data, and point to a highly mobile Zn species with a very high diffusion coefficient prefactor

Enhancement of thermoelectric properties by energy filtering: Theoretical potential and experimental reality in nanostructured ZnSb

Energy filtering has been suggested by many authors as a means to improve thermoelectric properties. The idea is to filter away low-energy charge carriers in order to increase Seebeck coefficient without compromising electronic conductivity. This concept was investigated in the present paper for a specific material (ZnSb) by a combination of first-principles atomic-scale calculations, Boltzmann transport theory, and experimental studies of the same system. The potential of filtering in this material was first quantified, and it was as an example found that the power factor could be enhanced by an order of magnitude when the filter barrier height was 0.5~eV. Measured values of the Hall carrier concentration in bulk ZnSb were then used to calibrate the transport calculations, and nanostructured ZnSb with average grain size around 70~nm was processed to achieve filtering as suggested previously in the literature. Various scattering mechanisms were employed in the transport calculations and compared with the measured transport properties in nanostructured ZnSb as a function of temperature. Reasonable correspondence between theory and experiment could be achieved when a combination of constant lifetime scattering and energy filtering with a 0.25~eV barrier was employed. However, the difference between bulk and nanostructured samples was not sufficient to justify the introduction of an energy filtering mechanism. The reasons for this and possibilities to achieve filtering were discussed in the paper