A new oxytelluride: Perovskite and CsCl intergrowth in Ba{sub 3}Yb{sub 2}O{sub 5}Te

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Whalen, J.B., E-mail: icatchsnook@yahoo.com [The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Condensed Matter Science Department, 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32310 (United States); Specialized Crystal Processing, Inc., 400 Capital Circle SE, Suite 18227, Tallahassee, FL 32301-3839 (United States); Besara, T. [The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Condensed Matter Science Department, 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32310 (United States); The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University-The Florida State University (FAMU-FSU) College of Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, 2525 Pottsdamer Street, Tallahassee, FL 32310-6046 (United States); Vasquez, R.; Herrera, F. [The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University-The Florida State University (FAMU-FSU) College of Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, 2525 Pottsdamer Street, Tallahassee, FL 32310-6046 (United States); Sun, J. [The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Condensed Matter Science Department, 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32310 (United States); The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University-The Florida State University (FAMU-FSU) College of Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, 2525 Pottsdamer Street, Tallahassee, FL 32310-6046 (United States); Ramirez, D. [The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Condensed Matter Science Department, 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32310 (United States); The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University-The Florida State University (FAMU-FSU) College of Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, 2525 Pottsdamer Street, Tallahassee, FL 32310-6046 (United States); Specialized Crystal Processing, Inc., 400 Capital Circle SE, Suite 18227, Tallahassee, FL 32301-3839 (United States); Stillwell, R.L. [The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Condensed Matter Science Department, 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32310 (United States); and others

2013-07-15

The new oxytelluride Ba{sub 3}Yb{sub 2}O{sub 5}Te was obtained from an alkaline earth flux. Ba{sub 3}Yb{sub 2}O{sub 5}Te crystallizes in the tetragonal space group P4/mmm (#123), with a=4.3615(3) Å and c=11.7596(11) Å, Z=1. The structure combines two distinct building blocks, a Ba{sub 2}Yb{sub 2}O{sub 5} perovskite-like double layer with square bipyramidal coordination of the ytterbium ions, and a CsCl-type BaTe layer. Short range magnetic order is apparent at below 5 K, with the magnetic behavior above this temperature dominated by crystal field effects. The structure may be considered as an analog to the Ruddlesden–Popper phases, where the NaCl-type layer has been replaced by the CsCl-type layer. The two-dimensional magnetic behavior is expected based on the highly anisotropic nature of the structure. - Graphical abstract: Optical images of Ba{sub 3}Yb{sub 2}O{sub 5}Te in transmission (left) and reflected (right) light, with atomic unit cell overlay. - Highlights: • Single crystal synthesis and characterization of a new phase, Ba{sub 3}Yb{sub 2}O{sub 5}Te. • The structure features the BaTe high pressure polymorph intergrowth. • Magnetic susceptibility measurements show short range 2 dimensional ordering. • Heat capacity measurements show a feature at the magnetic ordering temperature. • Optical reflectivity measurements show a {sup 2}F{sub 7/2}→{sup 2}F{sub 5/2} absorption at 976 nm.

First-principles calculations of novel materials

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Jifeng

Computational material simulation is becoming more and more important as a branch of material science. Depending on the scale of the systems, there are many simulation methods, i.e. first-principles calculation (or ab-initio), molecular dynamics, mesoscale methods and continuum methods. Among them, first-principles calculation, which involves density functional theory (DFT) and based on quantum mechanics, has become to be a reliable tool in condensed matter physics. DFT is a single-electron approximation in solving the many-body problems. Intrinsically speaking, both DFT and ab-initio belong to the first-principles calculation since the theoretical background of ab-initio is Hartree-Fock (HF) approximation and both are aimed at solving the Schrodinger equation of the many-body system using the self-consistent field (SCF) method and calculating the ground state properties. The difference is that DFT introduces parameters either from experiments or from other molecular dynamic (MD) calculations to approximate the expressions of the exchange-correlation terms. The exchange term is accurately calculated but the correlation term is neglected in HF. In this dissertation, DFT based first-principles calculations were performed for all the novel materials and interesting materials introduced. Specifically, the DFT theory together with the rationale behind related properties (e.g. electronic, optical, defect, thermoelectric, magnetic) are introduced in Chapter 2. Starting from Chapter 3 to Chapter 5, several representative materials were studied. In particular, a new semiconducting oxytelluride, Ba2TeO is studied in Chapter 3. Our calculations indicate a direct semiconducting character with a band gap value of 2.43 eV, which agrees well with the optical experiment (˜ 2.93 eV). Moreover, the optical and defects properties of Ba2TeO are also systematically investigated with a view to understanding its potential as an optoelectronic or transparent conducting material. We find