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This work vividly demonstrates the rational design of VSe 2-x O x -SS cathode as an effective strategy to achieve fast and highly aqueous zinc ion storage. [Display omitted] • A simple and fast surface oxygen implantation strategy was designed to adjust the electronic structure of VSe 2 and form a surface protective film. • The VSe 2-x O x -SS-30 electrode showed higher specific capacity, better rate performance and more satisfactory cycling stability. • The zinc (de)intercalation and transformation reactions mechanism was revealed by some ex-situ/in-situ techniques. Interfacial chemical modification is an effective strategy to adjust the strong Coulombic ion-lattice interactions with high valence cations experienced by electrode materials, facilitating the reaction kinetic. In this paper, a simple and fast surface oxygen implantation strategy was designed to adjust the electronic structure of stainless steel (SS) supported vanadium diselenide (VSe 2) nanosheets and form a surface protective film, which effectively accelerates the reaction kinetics of Zn2+ and extends the cycle life of the battery. It is demonstrated that the conductivity, pseudocapacitance and specific capacity can be tuned by selectively introducing oxygen species to the surface, which provides an important reference for the design of electrodes with controlled surface chemistry. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations also confirm that the electronic structure can be adjusted by surface oxygen injection strategy, which not only improves the conductivity, but also adjusts the adsorption energy, thus providing favorable conditions for zinc ion storage. Benefiting from the selenium vacancies and pores generated by the removal of part of selenium, and the oxide film formed on the surfaces, the VSe 2-x O x -SS-30 electrode showed higher specific capacity (188.4 mAh/g at 0.5 A g−1 after 50 cycles), better rate performance (107.1 mAh/g at 4 A g−1) and more satisfactory cycling stability (83.1 mAh/g at 5 A g−1 after 1800 cycles) than VSe 2 -SS electrode. Importantly, the flexible quasi-solid-state VSe 2-x O x -SS-30//Zn battery also exhibits high specific capacity and excellent environmental adaptability. Furthermore, the zinc (de)intercalation and transformation reactions mechanism was revealed by some ex-situ/in-situ techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The porous few-layer bimetallic co-doped g-C 3 N 4 is prepared via a facile bottom-up method. • The bimetallic synergetic regulating effect on the electronic structure can be produced in Co/Ni-g-C 3 N 4. • The superior performance results from the improved charge separation efficiency and visible light harvestability. • This work provides meritorious guidance for new bimetallic co-doped g-C 3 N 4 photocatalysts. The low specific surface area and low charge transfer efficiency of conventional graphite carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4) are the main obstacles to its application in photocatalytic CO 2 reduction. In this paper, graphite carbon nitride was protonated by phosphoric acid (H 3 PO 4), and a new few-layer porous carbon nitride was prepared by intercalation polymerization with doping bimetal in the cavity of g-C 3 N 4. Under visible light irradiation, the CO formation rate of Co/Ni co-doped g-C 3 N 4 can reach 13.55 μmol g−1 h−1, which was 3.9 times higher than that of g-C 3 N 4 (3.49 μmol g−1 h−1). The density functional theory (DFT) calculations showed that the addition of Co and Ni in the cavity of g-C 3 N 4 can induce bimetallic synergistic regulation of the electronic structure, thus improving the separation efficiency of charges and visible light capture ability of g-C 3 N 4. Our work has great reference value for designing and synthesizing novel bimetallic co-doped g-C 3 N 4 photocatalytic materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an unconditionally energy-stable, orthonormality-preserving, component-wise splitting iterative scheme for the Kohn-Sham gradient flow based model in the electronic structure calculation. We first study the scheme discretized in time but still continuous in space. The component-wise splitting iterative scheme changes one wave function at a time, similar to the Gauss-Seidel iteration for solving a linear equation system. At the time step n , the orthogonality of the wave function being updated to other wave functions is preserved by projecting the gradient of the Kohn-Sham energy onto the subspace orthogonal to all other wave functions known at the current time, while the normalization of this wave function is preserved by projecting the gradient of the Kohn-Sham energy onto the subspace orthogonal to this wave function at t n + 1 / 2. The unconditional energy stability is nontrivial, and it comes from a subtle treatment of the two-electron integral as well as a consistent treatment of the two projections. Rigorous mathematical derivations are presented to show our proposed scheme indeed satisfies the desired properties. We then study the fully-discretized scheme, where the space is further approximated by a conforming finite element subspace. For the fully-discretized scheme, not only the preservation of orthogonality and normalization (together we called orthonormalization) can be quickly shown using the same idea as for the semi-discretized scheme, but also the highlight property of the scheme, i.e., the unconditional energy stability can be rigorously proven. The scheme allows us to use large time step sizes and deal with small systems involving only a single wave function during each iteration step. Several numerical experiments are performed to verify the theoretical analysis, where the number of iterations is indeed greatly reduced as compared to similar examples solved by the Kohn-Sham gradient flow based model in the literature. • This paper proposes a novel and efficient numerical scheme for the Kohn-Sham gradient flow based model. • The scheme is an unconditionally energy-stable, orthonormality-preserving, component-wise splitting iterative scheme. • The scheme does not modify the original energy, allows large time step sizes, and solves small systems at each time step. • The rigorous proof is presented in the paper. • Several numerical examples are illustrated to verify the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this paper, four types of compounds are considered: ideal wurtzite (B N), N vacancies in B N (B N − V N), A l doped ideal B N (A l : B N) and A l doped B N with N vacancies(A l : B N − V N). The structural, electronic and magnetic properties are calculated by using the density functional theory (DFT) based on the generalized gradient approximation implemented in Quantum-Espresso code. Our results show that the nitrogen vacancies and the aliminium impurities are responsible of the magnetic properties in these compounds. We have also found that aluminium impurities have a remarkable effect on the optical band gap. Our results are in good agreement with experimental and other theoretical studies. We can conclude from this study, that this material can be used as diluted magnetic semiconductors. Highlights • The DFT method has been used to study the Al doped (w−BN). • The lattice parameters increase with the incorporation of Al in the BN supercell. • The Al impurities decrease the value of the band gap. • Al and N vacancy induce magnetic properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the carbon-doped boron nitride nanoplate (C-BNNP) was prepared by pyrolyzing the precursor under N 2 and served as an excellent adsorbent for removal of Rhodamine B (RhB). The structure and composition of C-BNNP were characterized and its adsorption behavior for RhB was investigated. Compared with boron nitride nanoplate (BNNP) which was synthesized under NH 3 , C-BNNP displayed an enhancement of the adsorption capacity for RhB (833 mg/g). The adsorption activity was comprehensibly studied by kinetics, isotherm and thermodynamics. The adsorption kinetics followed pseudo-second-order model. The equilibrium adsorption data agreed well with the Langmuir isotherm. And the thermodynamics indicated that the adsorption process was a spontaneous, exothermic and physisorption process. In addition, the density functional theory was proposed that doping carbon in the BNNP decreased the chemical hardness of the adsorbent and enhanced the adsorption capacity of C-BNNP for RhB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, we have proposed the adaptive local basis set for electronic structure calculations based on Kohn–Sham density functional theory in a pseudopotential framework. The adaptive local basis set is efficient and systematically improvable for total energy calculations. In this paper, we present the calculation of atomic forces, which can be used for a range of applications such as geometry optimization and molecular dynamics simulation. We demonstrate that, under mild assumptions, the computation of atomic forces can scale nearly linearly with the number of atoms in the system using the adaptive local basis set. We quantify the accuracy of the Hellmann–Feynman forces for a range of physical systems, benchmarked against converged planewave calculations, and find that the adaptive local basis set is efficient for both force and energy calculations, requiring at most a few tens of basis functions per atom to attain accuracies required in practice. Since the adaptive local basis set has implicit dependence on atomic positions, Pulay forces are in general nonzero. However, we find that the Pulay force is numerically small and systematically decreasing with increasing basis completeness, so that the Hellmann–Feynman force is sufficient for basis sizes of a few tens of basis functions per atom. We verify the accuracy of the computed forces in static calculations of quasi-1D and 3D disordered Si systems, vibration calculation of a quasi-1D Si system, and molecular dynamics calculations of H 2 and liquid Al–Si alloy systems, where we show systematic convergence to benchmark planewave results and results from the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the electronic structure, magnetic properties and half-metallicity of the CaMnO 3 /BaTiO 3 superlattice are investigated by employing the first-principle calculation based on density functional theory within the GGA or GGA + U exchange-correlation functional. The CaMnO 3 /BaTiO 3 superlattice is constructed by the cubic CaMnO 3 and the tetragonal ferroelectric BaTiO 3 growing alternately along (0 0 1) direction. The cubic CaMnO 3 presents a robust half-metallicity and a metastable ferromagnetic phase. Its magnetic moment is an integral number of 3.000 μ B per unit cell. However, the CaMnO 3 /BaTiO 3 superlattice has a stable ferromagnetic phase, for which the magnetic moment is 12.000 μ B per unit cell. It also retains the robust half-metallicity which mainly results from the strong hybridization between Mn and O atoms. The results show that the constructed CaMnO 3 /BaTiO 3 superlattice exhibits superior magnetoelectric properties. It may provide a theoretical reference for the design and preparation of new multiferroic materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we have investigated the structural, electronic and thermodynamic properties of tin oxide (SnO 2 ) using the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method (FP-LAPW) within the framework of density functional theory (DFT) as implemented in the Wien2k package within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and GGA plus trans-blaha-modified Becke–Johnson (TB-mBJ) as the exchange correlation. From the electronic properties, SnO 2 has a direct band gap in ( Γ – Γ ) direction with a value of 2.86 eV. The quasi-harmonic Debye model, using a set of total energy versus volume calculations is applied to study the thermal and vibrational effects. Temperature and pressure effects on the structural parameters, such as thermal expansion, heat capacities and Debye temperature are investigated from the non-equilibrium Gibbs function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a parallel orbital-updating based optimization method for electronic structure calculations. With our method, the solution of the minimization problem for the Kohn-Sham energy functional with respect to N orbitals is replaced by the solution of N independent minimization problems for the energy functional with respect to one orbital and the orthogonalization of the N updated orbitals. This new method allows a two-level parallelization. This feature makes our approach has a great advantage in large scale parallel computing. The numerical experiments show that our new method is reliable and efficient. Hence, our new method has a great potential for large scale electronic structure calculations on modern supercomputers. • Propose a parallel orbital-updating based optimization approach for KS model. • The new approach has a feature of two-level parallelization. • Provide two practical parallel orbital-updating based optimization algorithms. • Numerical experiments show that these new algorithms are reliable and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the manipulative effect of N doping on topological insulator Bi 2 Se 3 was investigated by using density functional theory (DFT). The computational results reveal that the van der Waals (vdW) correction is necessary when calculating the geometric structure of Bi 2 Se 3. Taking into account the spin–orbit coupling(SOC), the electronic structure of Bi 2 Se 3 can be accurately described, especially for the energy bands near the Fermi level. The N doping at anion sites can produce an impurity band which appeared at Fermi energy. Comparing with pure Bi 2 Se 3 , the electronic structure of N doping Bi 2 Se 3 changed obviously at Fermi energy. The valence band and conduction band meet when N doped on Se1 sites, the insulating properties of Bi 2 Se 3 system are damaged. The indirect gaps between the valence band and conduction band are 0.135 eV and 0.115 eV with N doping on Se2 sites with the doping levels 6.67% and 1.67%, respectively. On the other hand, the N doping at Se sites of Bi 2 Se 3 can induce magnetic moments. The magnetic moments are related to the covalent bond length between N atom and Bi atom. Furthermore, the real and imaginary parts of dielectric functions have been computed. The static dielectric constant ε 1 (0) becomes significantly larger and the peaks in the imaginary part of dielectric constant ε 2 (ω) spectra move toward low energy. The intensity of the peak is gradually enhanced and there is a small bump in Bi 6 Se 8 N2 at 0.38 eV. The N doping paves a prospective way to tune the topological properties and may find change to potential spintronic applications and electronic devices. • The electronic structure of N doping Bi 2 Se 3 are changed obvious at fermi energy. • The insulation properties of Bi 2 Se 3 system are damaged with N doping on Se1 sites. • The N doping at Se sites can induce magnetic moments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]