303 research outputs found
Dynamical, structural and chemical heterogeneities in a binary metallic glass-forming liquid
As approaching the glass transition, particle motion in liquids becomes
highly heterogeneous and regions with virtually no mobility coexist with
liquid-like domains. This complex dynamics is believed to be responsible for
different phenomena including non-exponential relaxation and the breakdown of
Stokes-Einstein relation. Understanding the relationships between dynamical
heterogeneities and local structure in metallic liquids and glasses is a major
scientific challenge. Here we use classical molecular dynamics simulations to
study the atomic dynamics and microscopic structure of
\mbox{Cu}_{50}\mbox{Zr}_{50} alloy in the supercooling regime. Dynamical
heterogeneities are identified via an isoconfigurational analysis. As deeper
supercooling is achieved a transition from isolated to clustering low mobility
atoms is reported. These slow clusters, whose size grow upon cooling, are also
associated to concentration fluctuations, characterized by a Zr-enriched phase,
with a composition \mbox{CuZr}_2. In addition, a structural analysis of slow
clusters based on Voronoi tessellation evidences an increase with respect of
the bulk system of the fraction of Cu atoms having a local icosahedral order.
These results are in agreement with the consolidated scenario of the relevant
role played by icosahedral order in the dynamic slowing-down in supercooled
metal alloys
Random local strain effects in homovalent-substituted relaxor ferroelectrics: a first-principles study of BaTi0.74Zr0.26O3
We present first-principles supercell calculations on BaTi0.74Zr0.26O3, a
prototype material for relaxors with a homovalent substitution. From a
statistical analysis of relaxed structures, we give evidence for four types of
Ti-atom polar displacements: along the , , or
directions of the cubic unit cell, or almost cancelled. The type of a Ti
displacement is entirely determined by the Ti/Zr distribution in the adjacent
unit cells. The underlying mechanism involves local strain effects that ensue
from the difference in size between the Ti4+ and Zr4+ cations. These results
shed light on the structural mechanisms that lead to disordered Ti
displacements in BaTi(1-x)Zr(x)O3 relaxors, and probably in other BaTiO3-based
relaxors with homovalent substitution.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Mg-Ti-H thin films for smart solar collectors
Mg-Ti-H thin films are found to have very attractive optical properties: they absorb 87% of the solar radiation in the hydrogenated state and only 32% in the metallic state. Furthermore, in the absorbing state Mg-Ti-H has a low emissivity; at 400 K only 10% of blackbody radiation is emitted. The transition between both optical states is fast, robust, and reversible. The sum of these properties highlights the applicability of such materials as switchable smart coatings in solar collector
Electronic structure, phase stability and chemical bonding in ThAl and ThAlH
We present the results of theoretical investigation on the electronic
structure, bonding nature and ground state properties of ThAl and
ThAlH using generalized-gradient-corrected first-principles
full-potential density-functional calculations. ThAlH has been reported
to violate the "2 \AA rule" of H-H separation in hydrides. From our total
energy as well as force-minimization calculations, we found a shortest H-H
separation of 1.95 {\AA} in accordance with recent high resolution powder
neutron diffraction experiments. When the ThAl matrix is hydrogenated, the
volume expansion is highly anisotropic, which is quite opposite to other
hydrides having the same crystal structure. The bonding nature of these
materials are analyzed from the density of states, crystal-orbital Hamiltonian
population and valence-charge-density analyses. Our calculation predicts
different nature of bonding for the H atoms along and . The strongest
bonding in ThAlH is between Th and H along which form dumb-bell
shaped H-Th-H subunits. Due to this strong covalent interaction there is very
small amount of electrons present between H atoms along which makes
repulsive interaction between the H atoms smaller and this is the precise
reason why the 2 {\AA} rule is violated. The large difference in the
interatomic distances between the interstitial region where one can accommodate
H in the and planes along with the strong covalent interaction
between Th and H are the main reasons for highly anisotropic volume expansion
on hydrogenation of ThAl.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure
Excess-entropy scaling in supercooled binary mixtures
Supercooled liquids near the glass transition show remarkable non-Arrhenius transport phenomena, whose origin is yet to be clarified. Here, the authors use GPU molecular dynamics simulations for various binary mixtures in the supercooled regime to show the validity of a quasiuniversal excess-entropy scaling relation for viscosity and diffusion
Ab initio calculations of partial molar properties in the single-site approximation
We discuss the application of the single-site approximation in calculations of partial molar quantities, e.g., impurity solution energy, segregation energy, and effective chemical potential, which are related to a variation of the composition of an alloy or its nonequivalent parts. We demonstrate that these quantities may be considerably in error if they an obtained in methods based on the single-site approximation for fixed alloy compositions. This error does not reflect a breakdown but rather an inappropriate use of the single-site approximation which is, in fact, found to be sufficiently accurate when properly applied in calculations of partial molar quantities
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