Enhanced 1T′-Phase Stabilization and Chemical Reactivity in a MoTe2 Monolayer through Contact with a 2D Ca2N Electride

Among the widely studied 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), MoTe₂ has attracted special interest for phase-change applications due to its small 2H-1T′ energy difference, yet a large scale phase transition without structural disruption remains a significant challenge. Recently, an interesting long-range phase engineering of MoTe₂ has been realized experimentally by Ca₂N electride. However, the interface formed between them has not been well understood, and moreover, it remains elusive how the presence of Ca₂N would affect the basal plane reactivity of MoTe₂. To address this, we performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations to investigate the potential of tuning the phase stability and chemical reactivity of a MoTe₂ monolayer via interacting with Ca₂N to form a van der Walls heterostructure. We found that the contact nature at the 2H-MoTe₂/Ca₂N interface is Schottky-barrier-free, allowing for the spontaneous electron transfer from Ca₂N to 2H-MoTe₂ to make it strongly n-type doped. Moreover, Ca₂N doping significantly lowers the energy of 1T′-MoTe₂ and dynamically triggers the 2H-to-1T′ transformation. The Ca₂N-induced phase modulation can also be applied to tune the phase energetics of MoS₂ and MoSe₂. Furthermore, using H adsorption as the testing ground, we also find that the H binding on the basal plane of MoTe₂ is enhanced after forming heterostructure with Ca₂N, potentially providing basis for surface modification and other related catalytic applications.     

Insight into room-temperature catalytic oxidation of NO by CrO2(110): A DFT study

The first-principles DFT calculations together with microkinetic analysis reveal the complex catalytic mechanism of low-content NO oxidation on CrO₂(110) at room temperature. It quantitatively makes clear that CrO₂(110) can exhibit considerable activity with the Mars-van-Krevelen mechanism preferred, and the nitrate species serves as the key poisoning species.     

Diffusive search with spatially dependent resetting

We consider a stochastic search model with resetting for an unknown stationary target $a\in \mathbb{R}$ with known distribution $\mu$. The searcher begins at the origin and performs Brownian motion with diffusion constant $D$. The searcher is also armed with an exponential clock with spatially dependent rate $r=r\left(\cdot \right)$, so that if it has failed to locate the target by the time the clock rings, then its position is reset to the origin and it continues its search anew from there. Denote the position of the searcher at time $t$ by $X\left(t\right)$. Let $E_0^{\left(r\right)}$ denote expectations for the process $X\left(\cdot \right)$. The search ends at time $T_a=inf\{t\ge 0:X\left(t\right)=a\}$. The expected time of the search is then ${\int }_{\mathbb{R}}\left(E_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a\right)\mu \left(da\right)$. Ideally, one would like to minimize this over all resetting rates $r$. We obtain quantitative growth rates for $E_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a$ as a function of $a$ in terms of the asymptotic behavior of the rate function $r$, and also a rather precise dichotomy on the asymptotic behavior of the resetting function $r$ to determine whether $E_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a$ is finite or infinite. We show generically that if $r\left(x\right)$ is of the order ${\left|x\right|}^{2l}$, with $l>-1$, then $log{E}_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a$ is of the order ${\left|a\right|}^{l+1}$; in particular, the smaller the asymptotic size of $r$, the smaller the asymptotic growth rate of $E_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a$. The asymptotic growth rate of $E_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a$ continues to decrease when $r\left(x\right)\sim \frac{D\lambda }{x^2}$ with $\lambda >1$; now the growth rate of $E_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a$ is more or less of the order ${\left|a\right|}^{\frac{1+\sqrt{1+8\lambda }}{2}}$. Note that this exponent increases to $\infty$ when $\lambda$ increases to $\infty$ and decreases to 2 when $\lambda$ decreases to 1. However, if $\lambda =1$, then $E_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a=\infty$, for $a\ne 0$. Our results suggest that for many distributions $\mu$ supported on all of $\mathbb{R}$, a near optimal (or optimal) choice of resetting function $r$ in order to minimize ${\int }_{{\mathbb{R}}^d}\left(E_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a\right)\mu \left(da\right)$ will be one which decays quadratically as $\frac{D\lambda }{x^2}$ for some $\lambda >1$. We also give explicit, albeit rather complicated, variational formulas for ${inf}_{r\gneqq 0}{\int }_{{\mathbb{R}}^d}\left(E_0^{\left(r\right)}{T}_a\right)\mu \left(da\right)$. For distributions $\mu$ with compact support, one should set $r=\infty$ off of the support. We also discuss this case.     

Universality of deep convolutional neural networks

Deep learning has been widely applied and brought breakthroughs in speech recognition, computer vision, and many other domains. Deep neural network architectures and computational issues have been well studied in machine learning. But there lacks a theoretical foundation for understanding the approximation or generalization ability of deep learning methods generated by the network architectures such as deep convolutional neural networks. Here we show that a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) is universal, meaning that it can be used to approximate any continuous function to an arbitrary accuracy when the depth of the neural network is large enough. This answers an open question in learning theory. Our quantitative estimate, given tightly in terms of the number of free parameters to be computed, verifies the efficiency of deep CNNs in dealing with large dimensional data. Our study also demonstrates the role of convolutions in deep CNNs.     

Information percolation and cutoff for the random‐cluster model

We consider the random‐cluster model (RCM) on with parameters p∈(0,1) and q ≥ 1. This is a generalization of the standard bond percolation (with edges open independently with probability p) which is biased by a factor q raised to the number of connected components. We study the well‐known Fortuin‐Kasteleyn (FK)‐dynamics on this model where the update at an edge depends on the global geometry of the system unlike the Glauber heat‐bath dynamics for spin systems, and prove that for all small enough p (depending on the dimension) and any q>1, the FK‐dynamics exhibits the cutoff phenomenon at with a window size , where λ_∞ is the large n limit of the spectral gap of the process. Our proof extends the information percolation framework of Lubetzky and Sly to the RCM and also relies on the arguments of Blanca and Sinclair who proved a sharp mixing time bound for the planar version. A key aspect of our proof is the analysis of the effect of a sequence of dependent (across time) Bernoulli percolations extracted from the graphical construction of the dynamics, on how information propagates.     

密度泛函理论研究MN@H_2O (M=Ga,Ge, In,Sn, Sb; N=M,Al)团簇的特性

采用密度泛函理论的B3LYP, B3P86, B1B95, P3PW91和PBE1PBE方法结合SDD, LANL2DZ和CEP-121G基组计算了d~(10)组态二聚物MN(M=Ga, Ge, In, Sn和Sb; N=M和Al)的几何结构.采用B3P86/SDD进一步研究了MN@H_2O团簇的几何结构及吸附能.结果表明,水分子结合在二聚物M_2上时,对二聚物影响较大,对水分子自身影响较小.将M_2中Ga, Ge, In, Sn或Sb替换一个原子为Al时,水分子在GeAl和SnAl上的吸附能变化较大,而在GaAl, InAl和SbAl上吸附能变化较小.另外, H_2O吸附在Ga, Ge, In, Sn和Sb上时,与吸附在Al上时,吸附能的变化不大.     

A DFT study on mechanisms of CO2 coupling with propargylic alcohols using alkali carbonates

The mechanisms of CO₂ coupling with the propargylic alcohol using alkali carbonates M₂CO₃ (M = Li, Na, K, Cs) have been investigated by means of density functional theory calculations. The calculations reveal that the target product tetronic acid (TA) is yielded through two stages: (a) the formation of the α-alkylidene cyclic carbonate (αACC) intermediate via Cs₂CO₃-mediated carboxylative cyclization of the propargylic alcohol with CO₂, and (b) the conversion of the αACC intermediate with Cs₂CO₃ to produce the cesium salt of the TA. Since the overall kinetic barriers for the two stages are comparable and affordable, the excellent chemoselectivity to the TA should be primarily originated from the high thermodynamic stability of the cesium salt of the TA. Moreover, relative to the TA, the possibility to yield the by-product acyclic carbonate can be excluded due to the both kinetics and thermodynamic inferiority. This result is different from the organic base-mediated reaction. Alternatively, our calculations predict that CsHCO₃ together generated with the cesium salt of the TA might also be an available mediating reagent for the incorporation of CO₂ with the propargylic alcohol. Compared to other alkali carbonates M₂CO₃ (M = Li, Na, K), the stronger basicity of Cs₂CO₃ and the lower ionic potential of cesium ion can raise the effective concentration of the αACC intermediate, and thus the conversion of the αACC intermediate into the cesium salt of the TA can be achieved with high yield.     

A new database and benchmark of the bond energies of noble-gas-containing molecules

We have developed a new database of structures and bond energies of 59 noble-gas-containing molecules. The structures were calculated by CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVTZ methods and the bond energies were obtained using the CCSD(T)/complete basis set method. Many wavefunction-based and density functional theory methods have been benchmarked against the 59 accurate bond energies. Our results show that the MPW1B95, B2GP-PLYP, and DSD-BLYP functionals with the aug-cc-pVTZ basis set excel in predicting the bond energies of noble-gas molecules with mean unsigned errors (MUEs) of 2.0 to 2.1 kcal/mol. When combinations of Dunning's basis sets are used, the MPW1B95, B2GP-PLYP, DSD-BLYP, and BMK functionals give significantly lower MUEs of 1.6 to 1.9 kcal/mol. Doubly hybrid methods using B2GP-PLYP and DSD-BLYP functionals and MP2 calculation also provide satisfactory accuracy with MUEs of 1.4 to 1.5 kcal/mol. If the Ng bond energies and the total atomization energies of a group of 109 main-group molecules are considered at the same time, the MPW1B95/aug-cc-pVTZ single-level method (MUE = 2.7 kcal/mol) and the B2GP-PLYP and DSD-PLYP functionals with combinations of basis sets or using the doubly hybrid method (MUEs = 1.9-2.2 kcal/mol) give the overall best result.