Anatomy of the band structure of the newest apparent near-ambient superconductor LuH3−x_{3-x}Nx_x

Recently it was claimed that nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride exhibited a near-ambient superconducting transition with a temperature of 294 K at a pressure of only 10 kbar, this pressure being several orders of magnitude lower than previously demonstrated for hydrides under pressure. In this paper, we investigate within DFT+U the electronic structure of both parent lutetium hydride LuH$_3$ and nitrogen doped lutetium hydride LuH$_{2.75}$N$_{0.25}$. We calculated corresponding bands, density of states and Fermi surfaces. It is shown that in the stoichiometric system the Lu-5d states cross the Fermi level while the H-1s states make almost no contribution at the Fermi level. However, with nitrogen doping, the N-2p states enter the Fermi level in large quantities and bring together a significant contribution from the H-1s states. The presence of N-2p and H-1s states at the Fermi level in a doped compound can facilitate the emergence of superconductivity. For instance, nitrogen doping almost doubles the value of DOS at the Fermi level. Simple BCS analysis shows that the nitrogen doping of LuH$_3$ can provide T$_c$ more than 100K and even increase it with further hole doping.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Structural, electronic properties and Fermi surface of ThCr2Si2-type charge-balanced KFe2AsSe phase as a parent system for a new group of "mixed" pnictide-chalcogenide superconductors

The ThCr2Si2-type arsenide-selenide phase KFe2AsSe is proposed as a parent system for a new "intermediate" group of Fe-based superconducting materials bridging the known families of Fe-pnictides (such as BaFe2As2) and Fe-chalcogenides (such as KxFe2-ySe2) superconductors. The characterization of the proposed charge-balanced phase by means of FLAPW-GGA approach covers the crystal structure, As/Se atomic ordering, stability, electronic bands, Fermi surface, and density of electronic states.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Elastic properties of mono- and polycrystalline hexagonal AlB2-like diborides of s, p and d metals from first-principles calculations

We have performed accurate ab initio total energy calculations using the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method with the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) for the exchange-correlation potential to systematically investigate elastic properties of 18 stable, meta-stable and hypothetical hexagonal (AlB2-like) metal diborides MB2, where M = Na, Be, Mg, Ca, Al, Sc, Y, Ti, Zr, Hf, V, Nb, Ta, Cr, Mo, W, Ag and Au. For monocrystalline MB2 the optimized lattice parameters, independent elastic constants (Cij), bulk modules (B), shear modules (G) are obtained and analyzed in comparison with the available theoretical and experimental data. For the first time numerical estimates of a set of elastic parameters of the polycrystalline MB2 ceramics (in the framework of the Voigt-Reuss-Hill approximation), namely bulk and shear modules, compressibility, Young's modules, Poisson's ratio, Lame's coefficients are performed.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figure

Effect of Li and Li-RE co-doping on structure, stability, optical and electrical properties of bismuth magnesium niobate pyrochlore

New Bi$_{1.5}$Mg$_{0.9-x}$LixNb$_{1.5}$O$_{7–δ}$ (x = 0.25; 0.40) and Bi$_{1.4}$RE$_{0.1}$Mg$_{0.5}$Li$_{0.4}$Nb$_{1.5}$O$_{7–δ}$ (RE – Eu, Ho, Yb) compounds with the pyrochlore structure were synthesized. The displacements of the A-site atoms (96g) and O' ones (32e) as well as the Li and RE atoms distribution in the A-sites were determined. The dopant distribution was proven by ab initio calculations. The most preferable (Bi$_{1.5}$Li$_{0.5}$)(Nb$_{1.5}$Mg$_{0.5}$)O$_7$ model was predicted with a direct band gap of 3.18 eV corresponding to the experimental Eg for Bi$_{1.5}$Mg$_{0.5}$Li$_{0.4}$Nb$_{1.5}$O$_{7–δ}$. The thermal stability of the compounds in air up to 1100–1220 °C and the reducing atmosphere up to 400 °C was determined. The charge disbalance in the A$_2$O' sublattice and the oxygen vacancies predetermine the dielectric behavior of the ceramics up to 200 °C, the mixed conductivity at high temperatures (T > 200 °C), and the proton transport up to 400 °C

Synthesis and characterisation of new MO(OH)2 (M = Zr, Hf) oxyhydroxides and related Li2MO3 salts

Two new solid MO(OH)2 (M = Zr, Hf) oxyhydroxides have been synthesised by an ion-exchange reaction from Li2MO3 (M = Zr, Hf) precursors obtained by a citrate combustion technique. The crystal structure of the oxyhydroxides has been solved by direct methods and refined using Rietveld full profile fitting based on X-ray powder diffraction data. Both oxyhydroxides crystallize in a P21/c monoclinic unit cell and have a structure resembling that of the related salts. Detailed characterisation of the fine-structure features and chemical bonding in precursors and oxyhydroxide powders has been performed using vibrational spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, pair distribution function analysis and quantum-chemical modelling