Publications

The formation of one-layer surface oxides on Pd(111) has been studied by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and density functional theory (DFT). Besides the ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{5}{\mathrm{O}}_{4}$ structure determined previously, structural details of six different surface oxides on Pd(111) will be presented. These oxides are observed for preparation in oxygen-rich conditions, approaching the thermodynamic stability limit of the PdO bulk oxide at an oxygen chemical potential of $\ensuremath{-}0.95\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{to}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{-}1.02\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{eV}$ ($570--605\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$, $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{mbar}$ ${\mathrm{O}}_{2}$). Sorted by increasing oxygen fraction in the primitive unit cell, the stoichiometry of the surface oxides is ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{5}{\mathrm{O}}_{4}$, ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{9}{\mathrm{O}}_{8}$, ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{20}{\mathrm{O}}_{18}$, ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{23}{\mathrm{O}}_{21}$, ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{19}{\mathrm{O}}_{18}$, ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{8}{\mathrm{O}}_{8}$, and ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{32}{\mathrm{O}}_{32}$. All structures are one-layer oxides, in which oxygen atoms form a rectangular lattice, and all structures follow the same rules of favorable alignment of the oxide layer on the Pd(111) substrate. DFT calculations were used to simulate STM images as well as to determine the stability of the surface oxide structures. Simulated and measured STM images are in excellent agreement, indicating that the structural models are correct. Since the newly found surface oxides are clearly less stable than ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{5}{\mathrm{O}}_{4}$, we conclude that ${\mathrm{Pd}}_{5}{\mathrm{O}}_{4}$ is the only thermodynamically stable phase, whereas all newly found structures are only kinetically stabilized. We also discuss possible mechanisms for the formation of these oxide structures.

We present a strategy combining machine learning and first-principle calculations to achieve highly accurate nuclear quadrupolar coupling constant predictions. Our approach employs two distinct machine-learning frameworks: a machine-learned force field to generate molecular dynamics trajectories and a second model for electric field gradients that preserves rotational and translational symmetries. By incorporating thermostat-driven molecular dynamics sampling, we enable the prediction of quadrupolar coupling constants in highly disordered materials at finite temperatures. We validate our method by predicting the tetragonal-to-cubic phase transition temperature of the organic–inorganic halide perovskite MAPbI3, obtaining results that closely match experimental data.

Transition metal impurities are known to adversely affect the efficiency of electronic and optoelectronic devices by introducing midgap defect levels that can act as efficient Shockley-Read-Hall centers. Iron impurities in GaN do not follow this pattern: their defect level is close to the conduction band and hence far from midgap. Using hybrid functional first-principles calculations, we uncover the electronic properties of Fe and we demonstrate that its high efficiency as a nonradiative center is due to a recombination cycle involving excited states. Unintentional incorporation of iron impurities at modest concentrations (1015 cm–3) leads to nanosecond nonradiative recombination lifetimes, which can be detrimental for the efficiency of electronic and optoelectronic devices.

We present an ab-initio density-functional-theory approach for calculating electron-phonon interactions within the projector augmented-wave method. The required electron-phonon matrix elements are defined as the second derivative of the one-electron energies in the PAW method. As the PAW method leads to a generalized eigenvalue problem, the resulting electron-phonon matrix elements lack some symmetries that are usually present for simple eigenvalue problems and all-electron formulations. We discuss the relation between our definition of the electron-phonon matrix element and other formulations. To allow for efficient evaluation of physical properties, we introduce a Wannier-interpolation scheme, again adapted to generalized eigenvalue problems. To explore the method's numerical characteristics, the temperature-dependent band-gap renormalization of diamond is calculated and compared with previous publications. Furthermore, we apply the method to selected binary compounds and show that the obtained zero-point renormalizations agree well with other values found in literature and experiments.

We calculate the dynamic structure factor $S(k,\ensuremath{\omega})$ of liquid Ge $(l$-Ge) at temperature $T=1250\mathrm{}\mathrm{K},$ and of amorphous Ge $(a$-Ge) at $T=300\mathrm{K},$ using ab initio molecular dynamics. The electronic energy is computed using density-functional theory, primarily in the generalized gradient approximation, together with a plane-wave representation of the wave functions and ultrasoft pseudopotentials. We use a 64-atom cell with periodic boundary conditions, and calculate averages over runs of up to about 16 ps. The calculated liquid $S(k,\ensuremath{\omega})$ agrees qualitatively with that obtained by Hosokawa et al. [Phys. Rev. B 63, 134205 (2001)] using inelastic x-ray scattering. In a-Ge, we find that the calculated $S(k,\ensuremath{\omega})$ is in qualitative agreement with that obtained experimentally by Maley et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 56, 1720 (1986)]. Our results suggest that the ab initio approach is sufficient to allow approximate calculations of $S(k,\ensuremath{\omega})$ in both liquid and amorphous materials.

Understanding collective phenomena in quantum materials from first principles is a promising route toward engineering materials properties and designing new functionalities. This work examines the quantum paraelectric state, an elusive state of matter characterized by the smooth saturation of the ferroelectric instability at low temperature due to quantum fluctuations associated with anharmonic phonon effects. The temperature‐dependent evolution of the soft ferroelectric phonon mode in the quantum paraelectric KTaO 3 in the range 0–300 K is modeled by combining density functional theory (DFT) calculations with the stochastic self‐consistent harmonic approximation assisted by an on‐the‐fly machine‐learned force field. The calculated data show that including anharmonic terms is essential to stabilize the spurious imaginary ferroelectric phonon predicted by DFT in the harmonic approximation, in agreement with experiments. Augmenting the DFT workflow with machine‐learned force fields allows for efficient stochastic sampling of the configuration space using large supercells in a wide temperature range, inaccessible to conventional ab initio protocols. This work proposes a robust computational workflow capable of accounting for collective behaviors involving different degrees of freedom and occurring at large time/length scales, paving the way for precise modeling and control of quantum effects in materials.

ZnO is a wide band gap metal oxide with a very interesting combination of semiconducting, transparent optical and catalytic properties. Recently, an amplified interest in ZnO has appeared due to the impressive progress made in nanofabrication of tailored ZnO nanostructures and functional surfaces. However, the fundamental principles governing the structure of even the clean low-index ZnO surfaces have not been adequately explained. From an interplay of high-resolution scanning probe microscopy (SPM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy experiments, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we identify here a group of hitherto unresolved surface structures which stabilize the clean polar O-terminated ZnO(0001) surface. The found honeycomb structures are truly remarkable since their existence deviates from expectations using a conventional electrostatic model which applies to the opposite Zn-terminated (0001) surface. As a common principle, the differences for the clean polar ZnO surfaces are explained by a higher bonding flexibility of the exposed 3-fold coordinated surface Zn atoms as compared to O atoms.

We report modifications of the ph-AFQMC algorithm that allow the use of large time steps and reliable time step extrapolation. Our modified algorithm eliminates size-consistency errors present in the standard algorithm when large time steps are employed. We investigate various methods to approximate the exponential of the one-body operator within the AFQMC framework, distinctly demonstrating the superiority of Krylov methods over the conventional Taylor expansion. We assess various propagators within AFQMC and demonstrate that the Split-2 propagator is the optimal method, exhibiting the smallest time-step errors. For the HEAT set molecules, the time-step extrapolated energies deviate on average by only 0.19 kcal/mol from the accurate small time-step energies. For small water clusters, we obtain accurate complete basis-set binding energies using time-step extrapolation with a mean absolute error of 0.07 kcal/mol compared to CCSD(T). Using large time-step ph-AFQMC for the N$_2$ dimer, we show that accurate bond lengths can be obtained while reducing CPU time by an order of magnitude.