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We report molecular dynamics simulations of multiple radiation damage cascades in the pyrochlores Gd2Ti2O7 and Gd2Zr2O7 and the solid solution Gd2(ZrxTi1–x)2O7 (x = 0.25, 0.50, 0.75). Using a simulation cell of 360,448 atoms, for each compound 2200 decay events are simulated over a total time of 10 ns, with each recoiling uranium atom (primary-knock-on atom) assigned initial kinetic energy of 5 keV. The structures generated are analysed using Steinhardt local order parameters. There is a large increase in volume for the Ti pyrochlore associated with a transition to an amorphous structure which resembles the melt while preserving the local environment of the Ti. The calculated dose for amorphisation is 20 eV atom−1 which compares well with experiment overlap of cascade and damage accumulation drives the amorphisation suppressessing the healing mechanisms. The behaviour of the zirconate is different – the substantial anion disorder produced by each recoil event is followed by healing and reversion to the parent pyrochlore. In the solid solution the onset of amorphisation is delayed to later times on increasing the Zr concentration and overall swelling reduced. Our simulations highlight the importance of ion mobility, associated with the weaker Zr–O bonds, in healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a recently established BaTiO3 potential model specifically designed for the calculation of defect energetics, atomistic simulations have been carried out on the intrinsic defect chemistry and Rare Earth (RE3+) doping of hexagonal barium titanate (h-BaTiO3). Five charge compensation schemes have been considered as well as potential cluster binding energies. The results show that ion size arguments are obeyed. In the dilute concentration limit, large RE3+ cations dope at the Ba-site via a titanium vacancy mechanism and mid sized RE3+ cations dope at the Ba and Ti sites simultaneously via a self compensation mechanism. In contrast, small RE3+ cations dope exclusively on the Ti-site via an oxygen vacancy compensation scheme. Comparisons between the hexagonal and cubic phases of BaTiO3 have also been drawn. It is suggested that Ba-site doping is less favorable and that Ti-site doping is considerably more favorable in h-BaTiO3 and that different defect configurations have a significant effect on the binding energies between such defects, leading to some mechanisms becoming more or less energetically favorable as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metadynamics is employed to sample the configurations available to calcium carbonate nanoparticles in water, and to map an approximate free energy as a function of crystalline order. These data are used to investigate the validity of bulk and ideal surface energies in predicting structure at the nanoscale. Results indicate that such predictions can determine the structure and morphology of particles as small as 3-4 nm in diameter. Comparisons are made to earlier results on 2 nm particles under constant volume conditions which support nanoconfinement as a mechanism for enhancing the stability of amorphous calcium carbonate. Our results indicate that crystalline calcitelike structure is thermodynamically preferred for nanoparticles as small as 2 nm in the absence of nanoconfinement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that recent developments in the application of metadynamics methods to direct simulations of crystallization make it possible to predict the orientation of crystals grown on self-assembled monolayers. In contrast to previous studies, the method allows for dynamic treatment of the organic component and the inclusion of explicit surface water without the need for computationally intensive interfacial energy calculations or prior knowledge of the interfacial structure. The method is applied to calcite crystallization on carboxylate terminated alkanethiols arrayed on Au (111). We demonstrate that a dynamic treatment of the monolayer is sufficient to reproduce the experimental results without the need to impose epitaxial constraints on the system. We also observe an odd-even effect in the variation of selectivity with organic chain length, reproducing experimentally observed orientations in both cases. Analysis of the ordering process in our simulations suggests a cycle of mutual control in which both the organic and mineral components induce complementary local order across the interface, leading to the formation of a critical crystalline region. The influence of pH, together with some factors that might affect the range of applicability of our method, is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on a study which demonstrated a method for the atomistic modeling of metal/oxide interfaces, even when these are complicated by charged defects and space charge in the oxide. Calculation of the structure and energies of silver/magnesium oxide interfaces; Image interactions between the ionic charges and the metal; Fluctuations in the induced charge distribution.

A representation of the short-range repulsion energy in an ionic system is described which allows for the fact that an ion may be compressed by its neighbours. The total energy of the system is expressed in a pairwise additive form, but the interionic interactions have a many-body character. The form of this representation and the parameters required to represent MgO and CaO are obtained from recent ab-initio electronic structure calculations. The fact that the representation is transferable between crystals with different coordination number is demonstrated by direct comparison with ab-initio results on the different crystal types. Comparison with experimental results on the equation of state of different isomorphs and on the location of the pressure of the transition between them confirms the accuracy of the ab-initio results and of the potential derived from them in representing perfect crystal properties. A computationally efficient molecular dynamics (MD) scheme may be derived for this representation. The additional degrees of freedom which represent the varying ionic radii are constrained to their adiabatic values in the course of the simulation by an adaptation of Car and Parrinello’s method. The MD scheme is used to examine whether an ab-initio parameterized potential model which allows for the spherical compression of an oxide ion by its neighbours and for dipole polarization effects is a sufficiently good representation of the interactions in MgO to allow an accurate calculation of the phonon dispersion curves. © 1996 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]