Advances and challenges in DFT-based energy materials design

The growing worldwide energy needs call for developing novel materials for energy applications. Ab initio density functional theory (DFT) calculations allow the understanding and prediction of material properties at the atomic scale, thus, play an important role in energy materials design. Due to the fast progress of computer power and development of calculation methodologies, DFT-based calculations have greatly improved their predictive power, and are now leading to a paradigm shift towards theory-driven materials design. The aim of this perspective is to introduce the advances in DFT calculations which accelerate energy materials design. We first present state-of-the-art DFT methods for accurate simulation of various key properties of energy materials. Then we show examples of how these advances lead to the discovery of new energy materials for photovoltaic, photocatalytic, thermoelectric, and battery applications. The challenges and future research directions in computational design of energy materials are highlighted at the end.     

Group velocity matters for accurate prediction of phonon-limited carrier mobility

First-principles approaches have recently been developed to replace the phenomenological modeling approaches with adjustable parameters for calculating carrier mobilities in semiconductors. However, in addition to the high computational cost, it is still a challenge to obtain accurate mobility for carriers with a complex band structure, e.g., hole mobility in common semiconductors. Here, we present a computationally efficient approach using isotropic and parabolic bands to approximate the anisotropy valence bands for evaluating group velocities in the first-principles calculations. This treatment greatly reduces the computational cost in two ways: relieves the requirement of an extremely dense κ mesh to obtain a smooth change in group velocity, and reduces the 5-dimensional integral to 3-dimensional integral. Taking Si and SiC as two examples, we find that this simplified approach reproduces the full first-principles calculation for mobility. If we use experimental effective masses to evaluate the group velocity, we can obtain hole mobility in excellent agreement with experimental data over a wide temperature range. These findings shed light on how to improve the first-principles calculations towards predictive carrier mobility in high accuracy.     

Atomic-Ordering-Induced Quantum Phase Transition between Topological Crystalline Insulator and Z_2 Topological Insulator

Topological phase transition in a single material usually refers to transitions between a trivial band insulator and a topological Dirac phase, and the transition may also occur between different classes of topological Dirac phases.It is a fundamental challenge to realize quantum transition between Z_2 nontrivial topological insulator(TI) and topological crystalline insulator(TCI) in one material because Z_2 TI and TCI have different requirements on the number of band inversions. The Z_2 TIs must have an odd number of band inversions over all the time-reversal invariant momenta, whereas the newly discovered TCIs, as a distinct class of the topological Dirac materials protected by the underlying crystalline symmetry, owns an even number of band inversions. Taking PbSnTe_2 alloy as an example, here we demonstrate that the atomic-ordering is an effective way to tune the symmetry of the alloy so that we can electrically switch between TCI phase and Z_2 TI phase in a single material. Our results suggest that the atomic-ordering provides a new platform towards the realization of reversibly switching between different topological phases to explore novel applications.     

Intrinsic Instability of the Hybrid Halide Perovskite Semiconductor CH_3NH_3PbI_3

The organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite CH_3NH_3PbI_3 has attracted significant interest for its high performance in converting solar light into electrical power with an efficiency exceeding 20%. Unfortunately, chemical stability is one major challenge in the development of CH_3NH_3PbI_3 solar cells. It was commonly assumed that moisture or oxygen in the environment causes the poor stability of hybrid halide perovskites, however, here we show from the first-principles calculations that the room-temperature tetragonal phase of CH_3NH_3PbI_3 is thermodynamically unstable with respect to the phase separation into CH_3NH_3I + PbI_2, i.e., the disproportionation is exothermic,independent of the humidity or oxygen in the atmosphere. When the structure is distorted to the low-temperature orthorhombic phase, the energetic cost of separation increases, but remains small. Contributions from vibrational and configurational entropy at room temperature have been considered, but the instability of CH_3NH_3PbI_3 is unchanged. When I is replaced by Br or Cl, Pb by Sn, or the organic cation CH_3NH_3 by inorganic Cs, the perovskites become more stable and do not phase-separate spontaneously. Our study highlights that the poor chemical stability is intrinsic to CH_3NH_3PbI_3 and suggests that element-substitution may solve the chemical stability problem in hybrid halide perovskite solar cells.     

Cu2ZnSnS4类四元硫族半导体的理论研究——以二元、三元、四元半导体的演化为思路

在过去60多年中,人们对半导体的研究集中在一元、二元和三元半导体方面,最近,出于寻找新型廉价、环保、高效光伏转换材料的需要,Cu2ZnSnS4类Ⅰ2-Ⅱ-Ⅳ- Ⅵ4型四元硫族半导体吸引了人们越来越多的关注,它在光催化和热电等多方面的应用也不断被发掘.然而,对于这类四元半导体的基本性质,如晶体结构和电子结构,人们知之甚少,很多研究还停留在经验阶段.文章首先简要回顾了这类半导体的由来和在应用方面的最新进展,然后详细介绍了文章作者对这类四元半导体的第一性原理计算研究工作的进展,其中包括:系统研究了这类硫族半导体在从二元向三元再向四元的演化过程中晶体结构和电子能带结构变化的规律,总结了元素成分对其影响的一般趋势,并结合实验结果分析了这类四元半导体晶格结构表征和带隙测量中易于出现的混淆;文章作者还以Cu2ZnSnS4为例,考察了这类四元化合物相对二元、三元化合物的相稳定性和本征缺陷性质.文章介绍的研究结果将为一系列Ⅰ2-Ⅱ-Ⅳ- Ⅵ4型四元半导体的深入研究提供基础.     

Competition between Stepwise Polarization Switching and Chirality Coupling in Ferroelectric GeS Nanotubes

Ferroelectricity of group-Ⅳ chalcogenides MX(M = Ge,Sn;X = Se,S) monolayers has been extensively investigated.However,how the ferroelectricity evolves in their one-dimensional nanotubes remains largely unclear.Employing an accurate deep-learning interatomic potential of first-principles precision,we uncover a general stepwise mechanism for polarization switching in zigzag and chiral Ge S nanotubes,which has an energy barrier that is substantially lower than the one associated with the convention...