AndreaBozzo/ceres-open-data-index huggingface dataset:
Interplay between ferroelectricity and metallicity in BaTiO3

We explore the interplay between ferroelectricity and metallicity, which are generally considered to be contra-indicated properties, in the prototypical ferroelectric barium titanate, BaTiO3. Using first-principles density functional theory, we calculate the effects of electron and hole doping, first by introducing a hypothetical background charge, and second through the introduction of explicit impurities (La, Nb and V for electron doping, and K, Al and Sc for hole doping). We find that, apart from a surprising increase in polarization at small hole concentrations, both charge-carrier types decrease the tendency towards ferroelectricity, with the strength of the polarization suppression, which is different for electrons and holes, determined by the detailed structure of the conduction and valence bands. Doping with impurity atoms increases the complexity and allows us to identify three factors that influence the ferroelectricity: structural effects arising largely from the size of the impurity ion, electronic effects from the introduction of charge carriers, and changes in unit-cell volume and shape. A competing balance between these contributions can result in an increase or decrease in ferroelectricity with doping.

Tags: batio3, dft, ferroelectricity, h2020, marvel-inspire
Bloch's theorem in orbital-density-dependent functionals: Band structures from Koopmans spectral functionals

Koopmans-compliant functionals provide an orbital-density-dependent framework for an accurate evaluation of spectral properties; they are obtained by imposing a generalized piecewise-linearity condition on the total energy of the system with respect to the occupation of any orbital. In crystalline materials, due to the orbital-density-dependent nature of the functionals, minimization of the total energy to a ground state provides a set of minimizing variational orbitals that are localized and thus break the periodicity of the underlying lattice. Despite this, we show that Bloch symmetry can be preserved and it is possible to describe the electronic states with a band-structure picture, thanks to the Wannier-like character of the variational orbitals. We also present a method to unfold and interpolate the electronic bands from supercell (Γ-point) calculations, which enables us to calculate full band structures with Koopmans-compliant functionals. The results obtained for a set of benchmark semiconductors and insulators show very good agreement with state-of-the-art many-body perturbation theory and experiments, underscoring the reliability of these spectral functionals in predicting band structures.

Tags: dft, electronic-bands, electronic-structure, koopmans-functionals, marvelosp, orbital-density-dependent, photoemission-spectra
Reversible dehalogenation in on-surface aryl-aryl coupling

The record contains the data to support the findings of our recent work on reversibility of the dehalogenation process in on-surface aryl-aryl coupling.
In the emerging field of on‐surface synthesis, dehalogenative aryl–aryl coupling is unarguably the most prominent tool for the fabrication of covalently bonded carbon‐based nanomaterials. Despite its importance, the reaction kinetics are still poorly understood. Here we present a comprehensive temperature‐programmed x‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy investigation of reaction kinetics and energetics in the prototypical on‐surface dehalogenative polymerization of 4,4′′‐dibromo‐p‐terphenyl into poly(para‐phenylene) on two coinage metal surfaces, Cu(111) and Au(111). We find clear evidence for reversible dehalogenation on Au(111), which is inhibited on Cu(111) owing to the formation of organometallic intermediates. The incorporation of reversible dehalogenation in the reaction rate equations leads to excellent agreement with experimental data and allows extracting the relevant energy barriers. Our findings deepen the mechanistic understanding and call for its reassessment for surface‐confined aryl–aryl coupling on the most frequently used metal substrates.

Tags: aryl-aryl-coupling, dehalogenation, experimental, h2020, onr, snsf, surface-chemistry
Simulating solvation and acidity in complex mixtures with first-principles accuracy: the case of CH₃SO₃H and H₂O₂ in phenol

Set of inputs to perform the calculations reported in the paper.
The i-pi input enables to perform molecular dynamics / metadynamics / REMD / PIMD simulations, with adequate thermostats.
The DFTB and LAMMPS input respectively enable to calculate force and energies within the DFTB and Neural Network Forcefield frameworks.
The CP2K input files enable to calculate force and energies at PBE and PBE0 level. The latter is used as the reference to train the neural network correction on top of DFTB.

Brief description of the work: We present a generally-applicable computational framework for the efficient and accurate characterization of molecular structural patterns and acid properties in explicit solvent using H₂O₂ and CH₃SO₃H in phenol as an example. In order to address the challenges posed by the complexity of the problem, we resort to a set of data-driven methods and enhanced sampling algorithms. The synergistic application of these techniques makes the first-principle estimation of the chemical properties feasible without renouncing to the use of explicit solvation, involving extensive statistical sampling. Ensembles of neural network potentials are trained on a set of configurations carefully selected out of preliminary simulations performed at a low-cost density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) level. Energy and forces of these configurations are then recomputed at the hybrid density functional theory (DFT) level and used to train the neural networks. The stability of the NN model is enhanced by using DFTB energetics as a baseline, but the efficiency of the direct NN (i.e., baseline-free) is exploited via a multiple-time step integrator. The neural network potentials are combined with enhanced sampling techniques, such as replica exchange and metadynamics, and used to characterize the relevant protonated species and dominant non-covalent interactions in the mixture, also considering nuclear quantum effects.

Tags: acid, acid-homogeneous-catalysis, artificial-intelligence, catalysis, ch3so3h, h2o2, machine-learning, marvel, reaction, solution-chemistry
Thermodynamics of order and randomness in dopant distributions inferred from atomically resolved images

Exploration of structure-property relationships as a function of dopant concentration is commonly based on mean field theories for solid solutions. However, such theories that work well for semiconductors tend to fail in materials with strong correlations, either in electronic behavior or chemical segregation. In these cases, the details of atomic arrangements are generally not explored and analyzed. The knowledge of the generative physics and chemistry of the material can obviate this problem, since defect configuration libraries as stochastic representation of atomic level structures can be generated, or parameters of mesoscopic thermodynamic models can be derived. To obtain such information for improved predictions, we use data from atomically resolved microscopic images that visualize complex structural correlations within the system and translate them into statistical mechanical models of structure formation. Given the significant uncertainties about the microscopic aspects of the material's processing history along with the limited number of available images, we combine model optimization techniques with the principles of statistical hypothesis testing. We demonstrate the approach on data from a series of atomically-resolved scanning transmission electron microscopy images of MoxRe1−xS2 at varying ratios of Mo/Re stoichiometries, for which we propose an effective interaction model that is then used to generate atomic configurations and make testable predictions at a range of concentrations and formation temperatures.

This dataset includes STEM image data files and associated python code to perform statistical analysis of the images and simulations.

Tags: dichalcogenide, monte-carlo-simulation, scanning-transmission-electron-microscopy, segregation, statistical-inference
Origin of low carrier mobilities in halide perovskites

Halide perovskites constitute a new class of semiconductors that hold promise for low-cost solar cells and optoelectronics. One key property of these materials is the electron mobility, which determines the average electron speed due to a driving electric field. Here we elucidate the atomic-scale mechanisms and theoretical limits of carrier mobilities in halide perovskites by performing a comparative analysis of the archetypal compound CH₃NH₃PbI₃, its inorganic counterpart CsPbI₃, and a classic semiconductor for light-emitting diodes, wurtzite GaN, using cutting-edge many-body ab initio calculations. We demonstrate that low-energy longitudinal-optical phonons associated with fluctuations of the Pb−I bonds ultimately limit the mobility to 80 cm² /(V s) at room temperature. By extending our analysis to a broad class of compounds, we identify a universal scaling law for the carrier mobility in halide perovskites, and we establish the design principles to realize high-mobility materials.

Tags: ab-initio, carrier-transport, cspbi3, electron-phonon-coupling, first-principles, gan, halide-perovskites, mapbi3, mobility, perovskites, prace
Evidence of large polarons in photoemission band mapping of the perovskite semiconductor CsPbBr3

Lead-halide perovskite (LHP) semiconductors are emergent optoelectronic materials with outstanding transport properties which are not yet fully understood. We find signatures of large polaron formation in the electronic structure of the inorganic LHP CsPbBr3 by means of angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy. The experimental valence band dispersion shows a hole effective mass of 0.26±0.02 me, 50% heavier than the bare mass m0=0.17 me predicted by ab-initio calculations. Calculations of the electron-phonon coupling indicate that phonon dressing of the carriers mainly occurs via distortions of the Pb-Br bond with a Fröhlich coupling parameter α=1.82. A good agreement between theoretical and experimental data is obtained within the Feynman polaron model, validating a viable theoretical method to predict the carrier effective mass of LHPs ab initio.

Tags: angle-resolved-photoelectron-spectroscopy, density-functional-theory, electron-phonon-coupling, epfl, erc, frohilch-polarons, gw-method, hybrid-functionals, lead-halide-perovskites, marvel, snsf
Quantum mechanical dipole moments in the QM7b, 21k molecules of QM9, and MuML showcase datasets

Molecular dipole moments of the QM7b dataset, a random sample of 21'000 molecules from the QM9 dataset, and the MuML showcase set (including the four challenge series) described in the linked publication.

Tags: ccsd, dft, erc, marveldd1, molecular-dipole
Is a single conformer sufficient to describe the reorganization energy of amorphous organic transport materials?

The reorganization energy (λ), which quantifies the structural rearrangement of a molecule when accommodating a charge, is a key parameter in the evaluation of charge mobility in molecular solids. However, it is unclear how λ is influenced by conformational isomerism, which co-exist in amorphous solids. Here, we examine the conformational space of a family of model amorphous organic hole transport materials (HTMs), derived from triphenylamine in a core-arm template, and probe the effect of conformational complexity on λ. We observe an extreme dependence of λ on the conformer geometry of sterically congested HTMs, which to the best of our knowledge has not been described previously. These results serve as a cautionary tale that, while extracting the reorganization energy from a single molecular conformer optimized in the gas phase may be appropriate for rigid and sterically unencumbered structures, it is not for many state-of-the-art HTMs that contain multiple bulky substituents.

Tags: amorphous-materials, charge-transport, epfl, erc, reorganization-energy, replica-exchange-molecular-dynamics, triphenylamine
Persistence of a surface state arc in the topologically trivial phase of MoTe2

This record contains the experimental band structure of MoTe2. The material exhibits a structural phase transition at approximately 240 K, and in the low-temperature 1T' phase is expected to realize the type-II Weyl semimetal phase. In our data we compare the band structure and the Fermi surface in the topological and in the trivial (1T'') phase. We report the existence of large surface arc, which is persistent across the topological phase transition, and we conclude that its observation cannot be taken alone as a smoking gun of the Weyl semimetal phase. The study is completed by a spin-resolved ARPES study of the bulk electronic properties in the low-temperature topological phase

Tags: electronic-bands, erc, experimental, marvel, snsf, spin-properties, topological-phase-transition, type-ii-weyl-semimetal
Asymmetric azide‐alkyne Huisgen cycloaddition on chiral metal surfaces

The record contains the data supporting our recent findings on asymmetric azide-alkyne Huisgen cycloaddition on chiral metal surfaces:
Achieving fundamental understanding of enantioselective heterogeneous synthesis is marred by the permanent presence of multitudinous arrangements of catalytically active sites in real catalysts. We address this issue by using structurally comparatively simple, well‐defined, and chiral intermetallic PdGa{111} surfaces as catalytic substrates. We demonstrate the impact of chirality transfer and ensemble effect for the thermally activated azide‐alkyne Huisgen cycloaddition between 3‐(4‐azidophenyl)propionic acid and 9‐ethynylphenanthrene on these threefold symmetric intermetallic surfaces under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. Specifically, we encounter a dominating ensemble effect for this reaction as on the Pd3‐terminated PdGa{111} surfaces no stable heterocoupled structures are created, while on the Pd1‐terminated PdGa{111} surfaces, the cycloaddition proceeds regioselectively. Moreover, we observe chirality transfer from the substrate to the reaction products, as they are formed enantioselectively on the Pd1‐terminated PdGa{111} surfaces. Our results evidence a determinant ensemble effect and the immense potential of PdGa as asymmetric heterogeneous catalyst.

Tags: ab-initio-simulations, asymmetric-heterogeneous-catalysis, azidealkyne-huisgen-cycloaddition, experimental, onsurface-synthesis, snsf
Even–odd conductance effect in graphene nanoribbons induced by edge functionalization with aromatic molecules: basis for novel chemosensors

We theoretically investigate the electron transport in armchair and zigzag graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) chemically functionalized with p-polyphenyl and polyacene groups of increasing length. Our nearest-neighbor tight-binding calculations indicate that, depending on whether the number of aromatic rings in the functional group is even or odd, the resulting conductance at energies matching the energy levels of the corresponding isolated molecule is either unaffected or reduced by exactly one quantum as compared to the pristine GNR, respectively. Such an even–odd effect is shown to originate from a subtle interplay between the electronic states of the guest molecule that are spatially localized on the binding sites and those of the host nanoribbon. We next generalize our findings by employing more accurate tight-binding Hamiltonians along with density-functional theory calculations and critically discuss the robustness of the observed physical effects against the level of theory adopted. Our work offers a comprehensive understanding of the influence of aromatic molecules bound to the edge of graphene nanoribbons on their electronic transport properties, an issue which is instrumental to the prospective realization of graphene-based chemosensors.

Tags: cscs, electronic-transport, gnr, graphene, marvel, nanoribbon, sensor, snsf
Direct, mediated and delayed intramolecular singlet fission mechanism in donor-acceptor copolymers

Donor-acceptor (D-A) extended copolymers have shown great potential to be exploited for intramolecular Singlet Fission (iSF) because of their modular tunability and intrinsic ability to incorporate low-lying charge-transfer (CT) and a triplet-pair (TT) state. While the SF mechanism has been widely debated in homo- and hetero-dimers, little is known about the singlet splitting process in A-D-A copolymer trimers. Unlike traditional two-sites SF, the process of iSF in D-A copolymers involves three molecular units consisting of two A and one D following a A-D-A polymeric chain. This scenario is therefore, different from the homo-dimer analogous in terms of which states (if any) may drive the SF process. In this work, we identify how singlet splitting occurs in prototypical iSF D-A copolymer poly(benzodithiophene-alt-thiophene-1,1-dioxide) (BDT−TDO) by means of wave-packet propagations on the basis of the Linear Vibronic Coupling (LVC) model Hamiltonian. Our results reveal that three different mechanisms drive the S→TT population transfer via antisymmetric and symmetric vibrational motion, including two favorable mechanisms of direct and mediated interactions, as well as a parasitic decay pathway that potentially delays the process. Remarkably, we uncover the interplay between an upper state of marked multi-excitonic character and a low-lying CT state in balancing the splitting efficiency, which anticipates their major role in defining future guidelines for the molecular design of D-A copolymers for iSF.

Tags: donor-acceptor-copolymers, epfl, lvc-model, quantum-dynamics, singlet-fission
Bloch's theorem in orbital-density-dependent functionals: band structures from Koopmans spectral functionals

Koopmans-compliant functionals provide a novel orbital-density-dependent framework for an accurate evaluation of spectral properties; they are obtained by imposing a generalized piecewise-linearity condition on the total energy of the system with respect to the occupation of any orbital. In crystalline materials, due to the orbital-density-dependent nature of the functionals, minimization of the total energy to a ground state provides a set of minimizing variational orbitals that are localized, and thus break the periodicity of the underlying lattice. Despite this, we show that Bloch symmetry can be preserved and it is possible to describe the electronic states with a band-structure picture, thanks to the Wannier-like character of the variational orbitals. We also present a method to unfold and interpolate the electronic bands from supercell (Gamma-point) calculations, which enables us to calculate full band structures with Koopmans-compliant functionals. The results obtained for a set of benchmark semiconductors and insulators show a very good agreement with state-of-the-art many-body perturbation theory and experiments, underscoring the reliability of these spectral functionals in predicting band structures.

Tags: dft, electronic-bands, electronic-structure, koopmans-functionals, marvelosp, orbital-density-dependent, photoemission-spectra
Band alignment at the CaF2/Si(111) interface through advanced electronic structure calculations

We determine the band alignment at the CaF2/Si(111) interface through various advanced electronic-structure methods. This interface is experimentally well-studied and serves as an ideal test case to examine the accuracy of theoretical schemes. We use both global and range-separated hybrid functionals as well as GW calculations including self-consistency and vertex corrections. Our calculation procedure accounts for residual strain resulting from the small mismatch in the lateral lattice constants at the interface to minimize the systematic error in the comparison with experiment. Both the hybrid-functional and the GW schemes give band alignments in overall good agreement with the experimental characterization. However, the considered methods yield sizable variations in the calculated band offsets, which do not originate from incorrect evaluations of the band gaps but rather from different inherent relative positions of the band edges. The comparison with experiment reveals that the global hybrid functional and the quasiparticle self-consistent GW with vertex corrections give the most accurate description of the band alignment. We then determine the variation of the band offsets as a function of the amount of excess fluorine at the interface and attribute the experimental spread in the measured offsets to uncontrolled fluorine contamination.

Tags: advanced-electronic-structure-calculations, band-alignment, caf2si-interface, density-functional-theory, epfl, epitaxial-growth, gw-method, hybrid-functional, narrow-band-gap-system, snsf, wide-band-gap-system
Collective all‐carbon magnetism in triangulene dimers

This record contain data to support the result we published in the work "Collective All‐Carbon Magnetism in Triangulene Dimers". Triangular zigzag nanographenes, such as triangulene and its π‐extended homologues, have received widespread attention as organic nanomagnets for molecular spintronics, and may serve as building blocks for high‐spin networks with long‐range magnetic order, which are of immense fundamental and technological relevance. In the publication we present the on‐surface synthesis and a proof‐of‐principle experimental study of magnetism in covalently bonded triangulene dimers. On‐surface reactions of rationally designed precursor molecules on Au(111) lead to the selective formation of triangulene dimers in which the triangulene units are either directly connected through their minority sublattice atoms, or are separated via a 1,4‐phenylene spacer.

Tags: erc, magnetic-carbon, marveldd3, nanographenes, snsf, spin-chains
Machine learning for metallurgy: a neural network potential for Al-Cu

High-strength metal alloys achieve their performance via careful control of precipitates and solutes. The nucleation, growth, and kinetics of precipitation, and the resulting mechanical properties, are inherently atomic-scale phenomena, particularly during early-stage nucleation and growth.  Atomistic modeling using interatomic potentials is a desirable tool for understanding the detailed phenomena involved in precipitation and strengthening, which requires length and time scales far larger than those accessible by first-principles methods.  Current interatomic potentials for alloys are not, however, sufficiently accurate for such studies.  Here, a family of neural-network potentials (NNPs) for the Al-Cu system is presented as a first example of a machine-learning potential that can achieve near-first-principles accuracy for many different metallurgically-important aspects of this alloy.  High fidelity predictions of intermetallic compounds, elastic constants, dilute solid-solution energetics, precipitate/matrix interfaces, generalized stacking fault energies, and surfaces for slip in matrix and precipitates, antisite defect energies, and other quantities, are shown.  The NNPs also capture the subtle entropically-induced transition between θ' and θ at temperatures around 600K.  Many comparisons are made with the state-of-the-art Angular-Dependent Potential for Al-Cu, demonstrating the significant quantitative benefit of a machine-learning approach.  A preliminary kinetic Monte Carlo study shows the NNP to predict the emergence of GP zones in Al 4%Cu at T=300K in agreement with experiments.  The NNP shows some significant transferability to defects and properties outside the structures used to develop the NNP but also shows some errors, highlighting that the use of any interatomic potential requires careful validation in application to specific metallurgical problems of interest.

Tags: aluminum, machine-learning, marveldd2, metallurgy