Ab initio calculation of structural,lattice dynamical,and thermal properties of cubic silicon carbide

We present first-principles calculations of the structural, lattice dynamical, and thermal properties as well as Raman results for cubic silicon carbide (3C SiC). The plane-wave pseudopotential approach to density functional theory (DFT ) in the local density approximation has been used to calculate the equilibrium properties of 3C SiC, i.e., the ground-state energy, the band structure, the valence electron density, the lattice constant, the bulk modulus, its pressure derivative, and the ionicity factor of the chemical bonds. The linear-response theory within DFT has been used to obtain the phonon frequencies, the eigenvectors, and the mean-square atomic displacements. Furthermore, we calculated the mode Grueisen parameters, the internal-strain parameter, the elastic constants, the Born effective charge, and the high-frequency dielectric constant. The specific heat at constant volume and at constant pressure, the thermal expansion coefficient, the temperature dependence of the lattice constant, and that of the isothermal and adiabatic bulk modulus have been derived within the quasi-harmonic approximation. Finally, the second-order Raman spectrum of 3C SiC has been calculated using phenomenological polarizability coefficients and ab initio frequencies and eigenvectors. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Vibrational and thermodynamic properties of β-HMX: a first-principles investigation

Thermodynamic properties of β-HMX crystal are investigated using the quasi-harmonic approximation and density functional theory within the local density approximation (LDA), generalized gradient approximation (GGA), and GGA + empirical van der Waals (vdW) correction. It is found that GGA well describes the thermal expansion coefficient and heat capacity but fails to produce correct bulk modulus and equilibrium volume. The vdW correction improves the bulk modulus and volume, but worsens the thermal expansion coefficient and heat capacity. In contrast, LDA describes all thermodynamic properties with reasonable accuracy, and overall is a good exchange-correlation functional for β-HMX molecular crystal. The results also demonstrate significant contributions of phonons to the equation of state. The static calculation of equilibrium volume for β-HMX differs from the room-temperature value incorporating lattice vibrations by over 5%. Therefore, for molecular crystals, it is essential to include phonon contributions when calculated equation of state is compared with experimental data at ambient condition.     

The thermal properties of Al–Mg–TM (TM = Sc,Zr): Ab initio study

Ab initio density functional theory (DFT) and density function perturbation theory (DFPT) have been used to investigate the thermal properties of the Al–Mg–Sc, Al–Mg–Zr and Al–Mg–Sc–Zr alloys over a wide range of temperature and pressure. Phonon dispersions are obtained at equilibrium and strained configurations by DFPT. Using the quasiharmonic approximation (QHA) for the free energy, several physical quantities of interest such as thermal Grüneisen parameter, heat capacity at constant pressure and at constant volume, thermal expansion coefficient, entropy, adiabatic bulk modulus and isothermal bulk modulus as a function of temperature and pressure are calculated and discussed. The present results show that the thermal expansion coefficient of the Al–Mg–Sc–Zr is far lower than that of Al–Mg–Sc and Al–Mg–Zr, and the variation features in the adiabatic bulk modulus and isothermal bulk modulus for the Al–Mg–Sc–Zr are also very different from that of Al–Mg–Sc and Al–Mg–Zr.     

Sensitivity analysis of thermodynamic properties of liquid water: a general approach to improve empirical potentials

A sensitivity analysis of bulk water thermodynamics is presented in an effort to understand the relation between qualitative features of molecular potentials and properties that they predict. The analysis is incorporated in molecular dynamics simulations and investigates the sensitivity of the Helmholtz free energy, internal energy, entropy, heat capacity, pressure, thermal pressure coefficient, and static dielectric constant to components of the potential rather than the parameters of a given functional form. The sensitivities of the properties are calculated with respect to the van der Waals repulsive and the attractive parts, plus short- and long-range Coulomb parts of three four site empirical water potentials: TIP4P, Dang-Chang and TTM2R. The polarization sensitivity is calculated for the polarizable Dang-Chang and TTM2R potentials. This new type of analysis allows direct comparisons of the sensitivities for different potentials that use different functional forms. The analysis indicates that all investigated properties are most sensitive to the van der Waals repulsive, the short-range Coulomb and the polarization components of the potentials. When polarization is included in the potentials, the magnitude of the sensitivity of the Helmholtz free energy, internal energy, and entropy with respect to this part of the potential is comparable in magnitude to the other electrostatic components. In addition similarities in trends of observed sensitivities for nonpolarizable and polarizable potentials lead to the conclusion that the complexity of the model is not of critical importance for the calculation of these thermodynamic properties for bulk water. The van der Waals attractive and the long-range Coulomb sensitivities are relatively small for the entropy, heat capacity, thermal pressure coefficient and the static dielectric constant, while small changes in any of the potential contributions will significantly affect the pressure. The analysis suggests a procedure for modification of the potentials to improve predictions of thermodynamic properties and we demonstrate this general approach for modifying potentials for one of the potentials.     

Van der Waals supercritical fluid: exact formulas for special lines

In the framework of the van der Waals model, analytical expressions for the locus of extrema (ridges) for heat capacity, thermal expansion coefficient, compressibility, density fluctuation, and sound velocity in the supercritical region have been obtained. It was found that the ridges for different thermodynamic values virtually merge into single Widom line only at T < 1.07T(c), P < 1.25P(c) and become smeared at T < 2T(c), P < 5P(c), where T(c) and P(c) are the critical temperature and pressure. The behavior of the Batschinski lines and the pseudo-Gruneisen parameter γ of a van der Waals fluid were analyzed. In the critical point, the van der Waals fluid has γ = 8/3, corresponding to a soft sphere particle system with exponent n = 14.     

Nonmonotoic fluctuation-induced interactions between dielectric slabs carrying charge disorder

We investigate the effect of monopolar charge disorder on the classical fluctuation-induced interactions between randomly charged net-neutral dielectric slabs and discuss various generalizations of recent results [A. Naji et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 060601 (2010)] to highly inhomogeneous dielectric systems with and without statistical disorder correlations. We shall focus on the specific case of two generally dissimilar plane-parallel slabs, which interact across vacuum or an arbitrary intervening dielectric medium. Monopolar charge disorder is considered to be present on the bounding surfaces and/or in the bulk of the slabs, may be in general quenched or annealed and may possess a finite lateral correlation length reflecting possible "patchiness" of the random charge distribution. In the case of quenched disorder, the bulk disorder is shown to give rise to an additive long-range contribution to the total force, which decays as the inverse distance between the slabs and may be attractive or repulsive depending on the dielectric constants of the slabs. By contrast, the force induced by annealed disorder in general combines with the underlying van der Waals forces in a nonadditive fashion, and the net force decays as an inverse cube law at large separations. We show, however, that in the case of two dissimilar slabs, the net effect due to the interplay between the disorder-induced and the pure van der Waals interactions can lead to a variety of unusual nonmonotonic interaction profiles between the dielectric slabs. In particular, when the intervening medium has a larger dielectric constant than the two slabs, we find that the net interaction can become repulsive and exhibit a potential barrier, while the underlying van der Waals force is attractive. On the contrary, when the intervening medium has a dielectric constant between that of the two slabs, the net interaction can become attractive and exhibit a free energy minimum, while the pure van der Waals force is repulsive. Therefore, the charge disorder, if present, can drastically alter the effective interaction between net-neutral objects.     

A van der Waals density functional study of ice Ih

Density functional theory with the van der Waals density functional (vdW-DF) is used to calculate equilibrium crystal structure, binding energy, and bulk modulus of ice Ih. It is found that although it overestimates the equilibrium volume, vdW-DF predicts accurate binding energy of ice Ih, as compared with high level quantum chemistry calculations and experiment. Inclusion of the nonlocal correlation, i.e., van der Waals interaction, leads to an overall improvement over the standard generalized gradient approximation in describing water ice.     

Collective rotational dynamics in ionic liquids: a computational and experimental study of 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium tetrafluoroborate

The aim of this study is the analysis of the rotational motion in ionic liquids, in particular, 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium tetrafluoroborate. By comparing single-particle and collective motion it is found that the Madden-Kivelson relation is fairly fulfilled in long-term simulation studies (>100 ns), i.e., the collective reorientation can be predicted by the corresponding single-particle property and the static dipolar correlation factor, GK. Furthermore, simulated reorientation is in accordance with hydrodynamic theories yielding hydrodynamic radii comparable to van der Waals radii. Since viscosity is the central quantity entering hydrodynamic formulas, we calculated and measured the viscosity of our system in order to have two independent cycles of hydrodynamic evaluation, a computational and an experimental one. While the static dielectric constant agrees with dielectric reflectance experiment, the hydrodynamic radii derived from the experiments are much lower as a consequence of enhanced rotational motion. Even more, a considerable dynamic broadening is observed in the experiments.     

On the decisive role of finite chain extensibility and global interactions in networks

The stress-strain dependence of dry networks at unidirectional extension and compression is studied. The phenomenological van der Waals equation of state is compared with different molecular models in order to provide an interpretation of the van der Waals corrections. It is shown that the stress-strain behavior predicted by the phantom, Langevin, and constrained junction fluctuation models are altogether covered by the van der Waals approach. The relationship between the suppression of junction fluctuation parameter introduced by Dossin and Graessley and the van der Waals corrections has been worked out. The effect of junction functionality on the small strain modulus as well as on the second Mooney-Rivlin coefficient is also presented.     

Ionic Liquids: Dissecting the Enthalpies of Vaporization

We calculate the heats of vaporisation for imidazolium‐based ionic liquids [C_nmim][NTf₂] with n=1, 2, 4, 6, 8 by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and discuss their behavior with respect to temperature and the alkyl chain length. We use a force field developed recently. The different cohesive energies contributing to the overall heats of vaporisations are discussed in detail. With increasing alkyl chain length, the Coulomb contribution to the heat of vaporisation remains constant at around 80 kJ mol^?1, whereas the van der Waals interaction increases continuously. The calculated increase of about 4.7 kJ mol^?1 per CH₂‐group of the van der Waals contribution in the ionic liquid exactly coincides with the increase in the heats of vaporisation for n‐alcohols and n‐alkanes, respectively. The results support the importance of van der Waals interactions even in systems completely composed of ions.     

L-苯丙氨酸衍生物与脂肪胺构筑双组分超分子凝胶

设计合成了系列单链L-苯丙氨酸衍生物,该系列衍生物单组分没有胶凝性能.选择脂肪胺作为配对物,与L-苯丙氨酸衍生物组成双组分体系后能够胶凝许多有机溶剂形成凝胶.流变学测试显示该凝胶体系弹性模量(G′)比粘性模量(G′′)约高一个数量级,有着很好的机械性能,并且呈现出典型的类固体的流变学行为.傅里叶变换红外(FT-IR)光谱、核磁共振(NMR)谱、小角X射线衍射(SAXS)和扫描电镜(SEM)结果表明,凝胶中胶凝剂分子形成纤维状或片层状的聚集体,羧基(―COOH)和氨基(―NH2)的酸碱作用、酰胺基团间(―CONH―)的氢键作用以及分子间范德华作用力是形成该凝胶的主要驱动力.凝胶中胶凝剂分子自组装形成具有周期性的层状有序结构,层状结构进一步组装形成纤维状聚集体,最终形成三维网状结构阻碍溶剂流动形成凝胶.     

L-苯丙氨酸衍生物与脂肪胺构筑双组分超分子凝胶

设计合成了系列单链L-苯丙氨酸衍生物,该系列衍生物单组分没有胶凝性能. 选择脂肪胺作为配对物,与L-苯丙氨酸衍生物组成双组分体系后能够胶凝许多有机溶剂形成凝胶. 流变学测试显示该凝胶体系弹性模量（G’）比粘性模量（G"）约高一个数量级,有着很好的机械性能,并且呈现出典型的类固体的流变学行为. 傅里叶变换红外（FT-IR）光谱、核磁共振（NMR）谱、小角X射线衍射（SAXS）和扫描电镜（SEM）结果表明,凝胶中胶凝剂分子形成纤维状或片层状的聚集体,羧基（―COOH）和氨基（―NH₂）的酸碱作用、酰胺基团间（―CONH―）的氢键作用以及分子间范德华作用力是形成该凝胶的主要驱动力. 凝胶中胶凝剂分子自组装形成具有周期性的层状有序结构,层状结构进一步组装形成纤维状聚集体,最终形成三维网状结构阻碍溶剂流动形成凝胶.     

Relations between transport coefficients and their density and temperature dependence

Nonequilibrium statistical mechanics via density fluctuation theory predicts relations between the bulk and shear viscosity, thermal conductivity, and self-diffusion coefficient of a fluid. In this Feature Article, we discuss such relations holding for fluids over wide ranges of density and temperature experimentally studied in the laboratory. It is discussed how such relations can be used to successfully compute the density and temperature dependence on the basis of intermolecular interaction potential models with the help of the modified free volume theory and the generic van der Waals equation of state once the parameters in them are determined at a low density or at a subcritical temperature. Although some approximations have been made to derive them, they represent a reliable molecular theory of transport coefficients over the entire density and temperature ranges of fluids--namely, gases and liquids--a theory hitherto unavailable in the kinetic theory of liquids and dense gases.     

Direct Measurement of Repulsive van der Waals Interactions Using an Atomic Force Microscope

The forces of interaction between a flat poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) surface and gold spheres (of radii 3–8 μm) were measured as a function of apparent surface separation for different intervening media. For air, fluorinated alkanes, and polar liquids the interaction between the surfaces was found to be attractive. With intervening liquids of low-polarity the interaction was found to be repulsive. This repulsion is attributed to a negative composite Hamaker coefficient leading to van der Waals repulsion.     

Acoustical study of molecular interactions in polymer solutions through various thermodynamical parameters and Flory's theory at 298.15 K

This study intends to portray the nature of polymer solutions by ultrasonic velocity and density data. Acoustical parameters, such as relaxation strength, relative association, molecular constant, fractional free volume, available volume, Beyer's non-linearity parameter, internal pressure, van der Waals’ constants and molecular radius have been computed for the binary mixtures of PEG400?+?methanol, PEG400?+?ethanol, PPG400?+?ethanol and PPG400?+?2-propanol systems at 298.15?K. Flory's theory has been used for computing ultrasonic velocity, surface tension, thermal expansion coefficient, thermal conductivity, excess heat capacity and excess isothermal compressibility. Isothermal compressibilities of mixtures have been theoretically evaluated using different theories. A new relation has been proposed by us for evaluating excess molar volume using ultrasonic velocity of the mixture which gives fairly good result when compared with the experimental values. Excess molar volume has been calculated using Flory's theory and Prigogine–Flory–Patterson theory. The partial molar volume and its excess value at infinite dilution have also been evaluated.     

The structural,electronic, elastic,vibration and thermodynamic properties of GdMg

We have investigated the structural, elastic, electronic, vibration and thermodynamic properties of GdMg alloy using the methods of density functional theory within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) for the exchange-correlation functional. We have presented the results on the basic physical parameters, such as the lattice constant, bulk modulus, pressure derivative of bulk modulus with and without spin-polarization (SP), second-order elastic constants, Zener anisotropy factor, Poisson's ratio, Young's modulus, and isotropic shear modulus. The thermodynamic properties of the considered compound are obtained through the quasi-harmonic Debye model. In order to obtain further information, we have also studied the pressure and temperature-dependent behavior of the volume, bulk modulus, thermal expansion coefficient, heat capacity, and Debye temperature in a wide temperature range of 0–1200 K. We have also calculated phonon frequencies and one-phonon density of states for B2 structure of GdMg compound. The temperature-dependent behavior of heat capacity and entropy obtained from phonon density of states for GdMg compound in B2 phase is also presented.     

Ligand Crosslinking Boosts Thermal Transport in Colloidal Nanocrystal Solids

The ongoing interest in colloidal nanocrystal solids for electronic and photonic devices necessitates that their thermal‐transport properties be well understood because heat dissipation frequently limits performance in these devices. Unfortunately, colloidal nanocrystal solids generally possess very low thermal conductivities. This very low thermal conductivity primarily results from the weak van der Waals interaction between the ligands of adjacent nanocrystals. We overcome this thermal‐transport bottleneck by crosslinking the ligands to exchange a weak van der Waals interaction with a strong covalent bond. We obtain thermal conductivities of up to 1.7 Wm^?1 K^?1 that exceed prior reported values by a factor of 4. This improvement is significant because the entire range of prior reported values themselves only span a factor of 4 (i.e., 0.1–0.4 Wm^?1 K^?1). We complement our thermal‐conductivity measurements with mechanical nanoindentation measurements that demonstrate ligand crosslinking increases Young's modulus and sound velocity. This increase in sound velocity is a key bridge between mechanical and thermal properties because sound velocity and thermal conductivity are linearly proportional according to kinetic theory. Control experiments with non‐crosslinkable ligands, as well as transport modeling, further confirm that ligand crosslinking boosts thermal transport.     

A comparison of relaxation processes in structurally related van der Waals glass formers: the role of internal degrees of freedom

Depolarized dynamic light scattering (DLS), dielectric relaxation (DS), and deuterium NMR studies of fragile van der Waals glass forming liquids phenylphthalein-dimethylether (PDE) and cresolphthalein-dimethylether (KDE) are presented. In PDE a new dielectric loss process was found, which can be attributed to the 180 degrees flip of the phenyl rings. The previous finding that the distribution of the structural relaxation times measured for PDE and KDE by DS is substantially narrower than that measured by DLS is explained by partial decoupling of the dynamics of the dipole moment from the structural relaxation of the sample. The dynamics of PDE and KDE is compared with the previous studies of two other structurally similar liquids: 1,1'-di(4-methoxy-5-methylphenyl)cyclohexane (BMMPC) and 1,1'-bis(p-methoxyphenyl)cyclohexane (BMPC) in order to relate dynamical features with the chemical structure of the material. The evidence for the intramolecular character of the secondary relaxations observed in BMPC and PDE is presented.