Comparative study on phase transition behaviors of fractional molecular field theory and random-site Ising model

Fractional molecular field theory(FMFT)is a phenomenological theory that describes phase transitions in crystals with randomly distributed components,such as the relaxor-ferroelectrics and spin glasses.In order to verify the feasibility of this theory,this paper fits it to the Monte Carlo simulations of specific heat and susceptibility versus temperature of two-dimensional(2D)random-site Ising model(2D-RSIM).The results indicate that the FMFT deviates from the 2D-RSIM significantly.The main reason for the deviation is that the 2D-RSIM is a typical system of component random distribution,where the real order parameter is spatially heterogeneous and has no symmetry of space translation,but the basic assumption of FMFT means that the parameter is spatially uniform and has symmetry of space translation.

The Negative Thermal Expansion Property of NdMnO_(3) Based on Pores Effect and Phase Transition

A novel negative thermal expansion(NTE) material NdMnO_(3) was synthesized by solid-state method at 1 523 K. The crystal structure, phase transition, pores effect and negative expansion properties of NdMnO_(3) were investigated by variable temperature X-ray diffraction(XRD), scanning electron microscope(SEM) and variable temperature Raman spectra. The compound exhibits NTE properties in the orderly O' phase crystal structure. When the temperature is from 293 to 759 K, the ceramic NdMnO_(3) shows negative thermal expansion of-4.7×10^(-6)/K. As temperature increases, the ceramic NdMnO_(3) presents NTE property range from 759 to 1 007 K. The average linear expansion coefficient is-18.88×10^(-6)/K. The physical mechanism of NTE is discussed and clarified through experiments.

A thermal conductivity switch via the reversible 2H–1T′phase transition in monolayer MoTe_(2)

The two-dimensional(2D)material-based thermal switch is attracting attention due to its novel applications,such as energy conversion and thermal management,in nanoscale devices.In this paper,we observed that the reversible 2H–1T′phase transition in MoTe_(2)is associated with about a fourfold/tenfold change in thermal conductivity along the X/Y direction by using first-principles calculations.This phenomenon can be profoundly understood by comparing the Mo–Te bonding strength between the two phases.The 2H-MoTe_(2)has one stronger bonding type,while 1T′-MoTe_(2)has three weaker types of bonds,suggesting bonding inhomogeneity in 1T′-MoTe_(2).Meanwhile,the bonding inhomogeneity can induce more scattering of vibration modes.The weaker bonding indicates a softer structure,resulting in lower phonon group velocity,a shorter phonon relaxation lifetime and larger Gr¨uneisen constants.The impact caused by the 2H to 1T′phase transition in MoTe_(2)hinders the propagation of phonons,thereby reducing thermal conductivity.Our study describes the possibility for the provision of the MoTe_(2)-based controllable and reversible thermal switch device.

Tailoring of thermal expansion and phase transition temperature of ZrW_(2)O_8 with phosphorus and enhancement of negative thermal expansion of ZrW_(1.5)P_(0.5)O_(7.75)

ZrW_(2)O_(8)is a typical isotropic negative thermal expansion material with cubic structure.However,quenching preparation,pressure phase transition and metastable structure influence its practical applications.Adopting P to part-substitute W for ZrW_(2-x)P_(x)O_(8-0.5x)has decreased the sintering temperature and avoided the quenching process.When x=0.1,ZrW_(1.9)P_(0.1)O_(7.95)with a stable cubic structure can be obtained at 1150℃.The thermal expansion coefficient is tailored with the P content,and phase transition temperature is lowered.When x=0.5,thermal expansion coefficient attains-13.6×10^(-6)℃^(-1),ZrW_(1.5)P_(0.5)O_(7.75)exhibits enhance negative thermal expansion property.The difference of electronegativity leads to the decrease of phase transition temperature with the increase of P content.The different radii of ions lead to new structure of materials when P substitutes more.The results suggest that the P atom plays the stabilization role in the crystal structure of ZrW_(2-x)P_(x)O_(8-0.5x).

Thermal and Electrical Properties of Liquid Metal Gallium During Phase Transition

Liquid metal gallium has been widely used in numerous fields, from nuclear engineering, catalysts, and energy storage to electronics owing to its remarkable thermal and electrical properties along with low viscosity and nontoxicity. Compared with high-temperature liquid metals, room-temperature liquid metals, such as gallium(Ga), are emerging as promising alternatives for fabricating advanced energy storage devices, such as phase change materials, by harvesting the advantageous properties of their liquid state maintained without external energy input. However, the thermal and electrical properties of liquid metals at the phase transition are rather poorly studied, limiting their practical applications. In this study, we reported on the physical properties of the solid–liquid phase transition of Ga using a custom-designed, solid–liquid electrical and thermal measurement system. We observed that the electrical conductivity of Ga progressively decreases with an increase in temperature. However, the Seebeck coefficient of Ga increases from 0.2 to 2.1 μV/K, and thermal conductivity from 7.6 to 33 W/(K·m). These electrical and thermal properties of Ga at solid–liquid phase transition would be useful for practical applications.

Unexpected Li displacement and suppressed phase transition enabling highly stabilized oxygen redox in P3-type Na layered oxide cathode

Oxygen redox is considered a new paradigm for increasing the practical capacity and energy density of the layered oxide cathodes for Na-ion batteries. However, severe local structural changes and phase transitions during anionic redox reactions lead to poor electrochemical performance with sluggish kinetics.Here, we propose a synergy of Li-Cu cations in harnessing the full potential of oxygen redox, through Li displacement and suppressed phase transition in P3-type layered oxide cathode. P3-type Na_(0.7)[Li_(0.1)Cu_(0.2)Mn_(0.7)]O_(2) cathode delivers a large specific capacity of ~212 mA h g^(-1)at 15 mA g^(-1). The discharge capacity is maintained up to ~90% of the initial capacity after 100 cycles, with stable occurrence of the oxygen redox in the high-voltage region. Through advanced experimental analyses and first-principles calculations, it is confirmed that a stepwise redox reaction based on Cu and O ions occurs for the charge-compensation mechanism upon charging. Based on a concrete understanding of the reaction mechanism, the Li displacement by the synergy of Li-Cu cations plays a crucial role in suppressing the structural change of the P3-type layered material under the oxygen redox reaction, and it is expected to be an effective strategy for stabilizing the oxygen redox in the layered oxides of Na-ion batteries.

Topological phase transition in network spreading

This paper investigates information spreading from the perspective of topological phase transition.Firstly,a new hybrid network is constructed based on the small-world networks and scale-free networks.Secondly,the attention mechanism of online users in information spreading is studied from four aspects:social distance,individual influence,content richness,and individual activity,and a dynamic evolution model of connecting with spreading is designed.Eventually,numerical simulations are conducted in three types of networks to verify the validity of the proposed dynamic evolution model.The simulation results show that topological structure and node influence in different networks have undergone phase transition,which is consistent with the phenomenon that followers and individual influence in real social networks experience phase transition within a short period.The infection density of networks with the dynamic evolution rule changes faster and reaches higher values than that of networks without the dynamic evolution rule.Furthermore,the simulation results are compared with the real data,which shows that the infection density curve of the hybrid networks is closer to that of the real data than that of the small-world networks and scale-free networks,verifying the validity of the model proposed in this paper.

Structural phase transition and transport properties in topological material candidate NaZn_(4)As_(3)

We report a comprehensive study on a layered-structure compound of NaZn_(4)As_(3),which has been predicted to be an ideal topological semimetal(TSM) candidate.It is found that NaZn_(4)As_(3) undergoes a structural transformation from high temperature rhombohedral to a low temperature monoclinic phase.The electric resistivity exhibits a metal-to-insulatorlike transition at around 100 K,and then develops a plateau at low temperature,which might be related to the protected topologically conducting surface states.Our first-principles calculation confirms further that NaZn_(4)As_(3) is a topological insulator(TI) for both different phases rather than a previously proposed TSM.The Hall resistivity reveals that the hole carriers dominate the transport properties for the whole temperature range investigated.Furthermore,an obvious kink possibly associated to the structure transition has been detected in thermopower around ~ 170 K.The large thermopower and moderate κ indicate that NaZn_(4)As_(3) and/or its derivatives can provide a good platform for optimizing and studying the thermoelectric performance.

Machine learning potential for Ab Initio phase transitions of zirconia

Zirconia has been extensively used in aerospace,military,biomedical and industrial fields due to its unusual combination of high mechanical,electrical and thermal properties.However,the fundamental and critical phase transition process of zirconia has not been well studied because of its difficult first-order phase transition with formidable energy barrier.Here,we generated a machine learning interatomic potential with ab initio accuracy to discover the mechanism behind all kinds of phase transition of zirconia at ambient pressure.The machine learning potential precisely characterized atomic interactions among all zirconia allotropes and liquid zirconia in a wide temperature range.We realized the challenging reversible first-order monoclinic-tetragonal and cubicliquid phase transition processes with enhanced sampling techniques.From the thermodynamic information,we gave a better understanding of the thermal hysteresis phenomenon in martensitic monoclinic-tetragonal transition.The phase diagram of zirconia from our machine learning potential based molecular dynamics simulations corresponded well with experimental results.

Pressure-induced phase transition and electronic structure evolution in layered semimetal HfTe_(2)

Motivated by the recent experimental work,the pressure-induced structural transition of well-known two-dimensional(2D)1T-Hf Te_(2)was investigated up to 50 GPa through the advanced CALYPSO structure search technique combined with the first-principles calculations.Our calculations suggested that the 1T-Hf Te_(2)will first transform to C2/m phase at 3.6 GPa with a volume reduction of 7.6%and then to P62m phase at 9.6 GPa with a volume collapse of 4.6%.The occurrences of 3D C2/m and P62m phases mainly originated from the enhanced Te-Te interlayer coupling and the drastic distortions of Hf-Te polyhedrons in P3m1 phase under compression.Concomitantly,the coordination number of Hf atoms increased from six in P3m1 to eight in C2/m and eventually to nine in P62m at elevated pressure.The metallic and semimetallic nature of C2/m and P62m phases were characterized,and the evidence of the reinforced covalent interactions of Te-Hf and Te-Te orbitals in these two novel high-pressure phases were manifested by the atom-projected electronic DOS and Bader charge.

Liquid–liquid phase transition in confined liquid titanium

We report the layering and liquid–liquid phase transition of liquid titanium confined between two parallel panel walls.Abnormal changes in the volume and the potential energy confirm the existence of the liquid–liquid phase transition of the liquid titanium. The typical feature of the liquid–liquid phase transition is layering, which is induced by the slit size,pressure and temperature. We highlight the fact that the slit size and pressure will determine the number of layers. In addition, with the change in the slit size, the density of the confined liquid expresses a fluctuating law. The phase diagram of the layering transition is drawn to clearly understand the layering. This study provides insights into the liquid–liquid phase transition of liquid metal in a confined space.

Phase transition in bilayer quantum Hall system with opposite magnetic field

We construct a mapped bilayer quantum Hall system to realize the proposal that two nearly flatbands have opposite Chern numbers.For the C=±1 case,the two Landau levels of the bilayer experience opposite magnetic fields.We consider a mapped bilayer quantum Hall system at total fillingν_(t)=1/2+1/2where the intralayer interaction is repulsive and the interlayer interaction is attractive.We take exact diagonalization(ED)calculations on a torus to study the phase transition when the separation distance d/l_(B)is driven.The critical point at d_(c)/l_(B)=0.68 is characterized by a collapse of degeneracy and a crossing of energy levels.In the region d/l_(B)<d_(c)/l_(B),the states of each level are highly degenerate.The pair-correlation function indicates electrons with opposite pseudo-spins are strong correlated at r=0.We find an exciton stripe phase composed of bound pairs.The ferromagnetic ground state is destroyed by the strong effective attractive potential.An electron composite-Fermion(eCF)and a hole composite Fermion(hCF)are tightly bound.In the region d/lB>d_(c)/l_(B),a crossover from the d→d_(c)limit to the large d limit is observed.The electron and hole composite Fermion liquids(CFL)are realized by composite Fermions(CF)which attach opposite fluxes,respectively.

First-order quantum phase transition and entanglement in the Jaynes-Cummings model with a squeezed light

We study the quantum phase transition and entanglement in the Jaynes-Cummings model with squeezed light,utilize a special transformation method to obtain the analytical ground state of the model within the near-resonance regime,and numerically verify the validity of the analytical ground state.It is found that the ground state exhibits a first-order quantum phase transition at the critical point linearly induced by squeezed light,and the ground state entanglement reaches its maximum when the qubit-field coupling strength is large enough at the critical point.

Floquet dynamical quantum phase transitions in transverse XY spin chains under periodic kickings

Floquet dynamical quantum phase transitions(DQPTs),which are nonanalytic phenomena recuring periodically in time-periodic driven quantum many-body systems,have been widely studied in recent years.In this article,the Floquet DQPTs in transverse XY spin chains under the modulation ofδ-function periodic kickings are investigated.We analytically solve the system,and by considering the eigenstate as well as the ground state as the initial state of the Floquet dynamics,we study the corresponding multiple Floquet DQPTs emerged in the micromotion with different kicking moments.The rate function of return amplitude,the Pancharatnam geometric phase and the dynamical topological order parameter are calculated,which consistently verify the emergence of Floquet DQPTs in the system.

Investigation on influence of alloying on phase transitions of duplex stainless steel based on thermochemical calculation

This paper investigated on influence of different alloying elements added into duplex stainless steel (DSS) on phase transitions using thermochemical methods in comparison with experiment.The results showed that the most possible species in the ferrite phase,austenite phase,σphase,Hcp phase,χphase,and carbide were Cr:Va-type,Fe:Va-type,Ni:Cr:Mo-type,Cr_(2)N-type,Fe_(24)Mo_(10)Cr_(24)-type,and Cr:Mo:C-type,respectively.Furthermore,the Ni,N,Cr,and Mo alloying had significant influences on the transition of each DSS phase.The Ni and N additions obviously raised the temperature at ferrite-1/austenite-1 balance while the Cr and Mo decreased the dual-phase balance temperature.In addition,the Ni addition can promote the precipitating ofσphase at relatively high temperature while the precipitating of Hcp phase at relatively low temperature.The Hcp phase andχphase can be obviously increased by the N addition.The introduction of Cr and Mo notably enhances the precipitation ofσphase.However,the promotion ofχphase precipitation is facilitated by the presence of Mo,while the Cr element acts as an inhibitor forχphase precipitation.Furthermore,the ferrite/austenite ratio tested by experiment was higher than that calculated by thermochemical methods,thus pre-designed solution temperature should be lower about 30-100℃than that calculated by thermochemical methods.

Density Functional Study of Mechanical, Electronic and Pressure Induced Phase Transition Properties of CaFé2As2

We report results on the ab initio study of the mechanical and electronic properties of the iron Pnictide compound CaFe2As2 and its phase transition under pressure using Quantum Espresso code. We do analysis of the strength of bonds in individual points of this material and proper Cauchy pressure calculation which will give more insight on the elastic responses. Ground state energy was done in the framework of density functional theory (DFT) based on plane wave self-consistent field (PWscf) and ultrasoft pseudo potential (USPP) method as treated in the Perdew-Burke Ernzerhof (PBE) generalized gradient approximation and local density approximations. Elastic constants were computed using thermo_pw and the values were used to calculate mechanical properties and pressure phase changes. From the non-zero positive elastic constants, the Iron Pnictide compound is found to be mechanically stable and its Poisson’s ratio indicates that it is brittle and isotropic. Pressure induced phase transition is here found to happen at an applied external pressure of 0.2 GPa causing the tetragonal phase to change to an orthorhombic phase which agrees well with previous reports.

Density Functional Study of Mechanical, Electronic and Pressure Induced Phase Transition Properties of CaFé2As2

We report results on the ab initio study of the mechanical and electronic properties of the iron Pnictide compound CaFe2As2 and its phase transition under pressure using Quantum Espresso code. We do analysis of the strength of bonds in individual points of this material and proper Cauchy pressure calculation which will give more insight on the elastic responses. Ground state energy was done in the framework of density functional theory (DFT) based on plane wave self-consistent field (PWscf) and ultrasoft pseudo potential (USPP) method as treated in the Perdew-Burke Ernzerhof (PBE) generalized gradient approximation and local density approximations. Elastic constants were computed using thermo_pw and the values were used to calculate mechanical properties and pressure phase changes. From the non-zero positive elastic constants, the Iron Pnictide compound is found to be mechanically stable and its Poisson’s ratio indicates that it is brittle and isotropic. Pressure induced phase transition is here found to happen at an applied external pressure of 0.2 GPa causing the tetragonal phase to change to an orthorhombic phase which agrees well with previous reports.

Arguing on Entropic and Enthalpic First-Order Phase Transitions in Strongly Interacting Matter

The pattern of isentropes in the vicinity of a first-order phase transition is proposed as a key for a sub-classification. While the confinement-deconfinement transition, conjectured to set in beyond a critical end point in the QCD phase diagram, is often related to an entropic transition and the apparently settled gas-liquid transition in nuclear matter is an enthalphic transition, the conceivable local isentropes w.r.t. “incoming” or “outgoing” serve as another useful guide for discussing possible implications, both in the presumed hydrodynamical expansion stage of heavy-ion collisions and the core-collapse of supernova explosions. Examples, such as the quark-meson model and two-phase models, are shown to distinguish concisely the different transitions.

Suppressing irreversible phase transition and enhancing electrochemical performance of Ni-rich layered cathode LiNi_(0.9)Co_(0.05)Mn_(0.05)O_(2) by fluorine substitution

Ni-rich layered oxide LiNi_(x)Co_(y)Mn_(1-x-y)O_(2)(x≥0.8)is the most promising cathodes for future high energy automotive lithium-ion batteries.However,its application is hindered by the undesirable cycle stability,mainly due to the irreversible structure change at high voltage.Herein,we demonstrate that F substitution with the appropriate amount(1 at%)is capable for improve the electrochemical performance of LiNi_(0.9)Co_(0.05)Mn_(0.05)O_(2) cathode significantly.It is revealed that F substitution can reduce cation mixing,stabilize the crystal structure and improve Li transport kinetics.The resulted LiNi_(0.9)Co_(0.05)Mn_(0.05)O_(1.99)F_(0.01)cathode can deliver a high capacity of 194.4 mAh g^(-1) with capacity retention of 95.5%after 100 cycles at 2 C and 165.2 mAh g^(-1) at 5 C.In-situ synchrotron X-ray technique proves that F ions in the cathode materials can suppress the irreversible phase transition from H2 phase to H3 phase in high voltage region by preventing oxygen gliding in a-b planes,ensuring a long-term cycle stability.

Monogamy quantum correlation near the quantum phase transitions in the two-dimensional XY spin systems

We investigate the role of quantum correlation around the quantum phase transitions by using quantum renormalization group theory. Numerical analysis indicates that quantum correlation as well as quantum nonlocality can efficiently detect the quantum critical point in the two-dimensional XY systems. The nonanalytic behavior of the first derivative of quantum correlation is observed at the critical point as the size of the model increases. Furthermore, we discuss the quantum correlation distribution in this system based on the square of concurrence(SC) and square of quantum discord(SQD). The monogamous properties of SC and SQD are obtained. Particularly, we prove that the quantum critical point can also be achieved by monogamy score.