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The 2H, 1T, and their distorted structures are known as prototype structures of $AB_2$ monolayers. Here, we study a puckered structure that is truncated from the (110) surface of fluorite-type materials. 53 fluorite-type materials are investigated based on first-principles approach. The formation energy calculations indicate that seven systems form the puckered structure in the monolayer limit, while other systems form either 1T, 2H, or distorted 1T structures. The puckered structures of PbF$_2$, PRh$_2$, and Ga$_2$Au exhibit negative Poisson's ratio (NPR) in the out-of-plane direction. An analytical model for the NPR is derived. The surface energy calculations predict the appearance of NPR., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

A recent experiment has reported that body-centered cubic (bcc)-structured Ag is realized by bending face-centered cubic (fcc)-structured Ag nanowires [S. Sun {\it et al}., Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 128}, 015701 (2022)]. However, the bcc phase has been observed only near the Ag surface. Here, we explore how the bcc phase is stabilized near the surface by compressions. Our first-principles calculations for noble metals, Cu, Ag, and Au, indicate that body-centered tetragonal (bct) rather than bcc structure is preferred due to the surface effect. The bct-fcc boundary treated as a fixed boundary condition is necessary to thermodynamically stabilize the bct phase of Ag nanowire. The correlation between crystal structure and electron density-of-states is also discussed for three noble metals., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

Motivated by the experimental synthesis of two-dimensional (2D) perovskite materials, we study the stability of 2D SrTiO$_3$ from first principles. We find that the TiO$_6$ octahedral rotations emerge in 2D SrTiO$_3$ with a rotation angle twice that in the 3D bulk. The rotation angle decreases significantly with the film thickness, reflecting the strong interlayer coupling that is absent in the conventional 2D materials. Using the molecular dynamics simulations, the cubic-like phase is found to appear above 1000 K that is much higher than the transition temperature of 3D SrTiO$_3$., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

Surface rippling has been observed when atoms of $X$ and $A$ are mixed on the $A$ substrate surface. The rippling amplitude has been estimated using hard sphere models. We present a gedanken experiment predicting a penetration of small atoms into bulk through the (100) surface. To understand how the electronic effects alter this picture, we investigate the surface rippling of $X/A(100)$ from first-principles, assuming $X=$ H to Bi except for noble gases and $A=$ Cu, Ag, and Au. We show that the small atoms (such as H, C, N, O and F) attract electrons from the substrate due to the large electronegativity, which prevent them from passing through the void in the (100) surface. The behaviors of small atoms are further explored by studying lateral displacements of the top layer in the $A$ substrate and a formation of the $X$ dimer above, below, and across the top layer. The present work provides an example to understand when atoms are not hard spheres., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

The alkali halides, known as ionic crystals, have the NaCl-type or CsCl-type structure as the ground state. We study the structural, vibrational, and electronic properties of two-dimensional (2D) ionic crystals from first-principles. Two potential structures that are hexagonal and tetragonal are investigated as structural templates. Through phonon dispersion calculations, 8 and 16 out of 20 alkali halides in the hexagonal and tetragonal structures are dynamically stable, respectively. The electron energy gaps range from 6.8 eV for LiF to 3.9 eV for RbI and CsI in the tetragonal structure within the generalized gradient approximation. By considering the Madelung energy and the core-core repulsion, we propose a hard sphere model that accounts for the nearest-neighbor bond length and the cohesive energy of 2D alkali halides. The 2D CsAu in the tetragonal structure is also predicted to be stable as an ionic crystal including only metallic elements, showing a band gap of 2.6 eV that is higher than that of the 3D counterparts., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures

The graphene-graphite relationship in structural geometry is a basic principle to predict novel two-dimensional (2D) materials. Here, we demonstrate that this is not the case in binary metallic systems. We use the Bayesian optimization framework combined with the density-functional theory approach to determine the stable configuration of atomic species on a hexagonal plane. We show that the optimized structure of 2D Cu-Au exhibits the hexagonal lattice of a hexagonal ring of Cu atoms containing one Au atom, where the number of the Cu atoms is larger than that of the Au atoms in the unit cell, which is difficult to speculate from the atomic distribution of CuAu in the L1$_0$ structure. We also show that 2D Cu-$X$ with $X=$ Be, Zn, and Pd have hexagonal or elongated rings containing different atoms in the unit cell. Based on the binary Lennard-Jones model, we propose that such structures can appear for weakly-bonded systems located in between the phase-separated and strongly-bonded systems with the interatomic interaction energy between different species., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

We study the structure-stability relationship of the Lennard-Jones (LJ) clusters from a point of view of vibrations. By assuming the size up to $N=1610$, we demonstrate that the $N$-dependence of the maximum vibrational frequency reflects the geometry of the core (the interior of cluster) that will determine the overall geometry of the cluster. This allows us to identify the formation of non-icosahedral structures for $N\le 150$, the vacancy formation at the core for $N\ge 752$, and the transition from icosahedral to decahedral structures at $N = 1034$. We apply the maximum frequency analysis to classify metastable clusters for $19\le N \le 39$, where transformation pathways between different structures are visualized, and the energy barrier height is estimated simultaneously., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

Although many binary compounds have the B2 (CsCl-type) structure in the thermodynamic phase diagram, an origin of the structural stability is not understood well. Here, we focus on 416 compounds in the B2 structure extracted from the Materials Project, and study the dynamical stability of those compounds from first principles. We demonstrate that the B2 phase stability lies in whether the lowest frequency phonon at the $M$ point in the Brillouin zone is endowed with a positive frequency. We show that the interatomic interactions up to the fourth nearest neighbor atoms are necessary for stabilizing such phonon modes, which should determine the minimum cutoff radius for constructing the interatomic potentials of binary compounds with guaranteed accuracy., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

The ordered alloys of alkali metals (Rb and Cs) and gold (Au) have the B2 (CsCl-type) structure and show a semiconducting property, irrespective to the metallic constituents. Francium (Fr) is classed as an alkali metal and is expected to form the B2 structure with Au. However, it is difficult to synthesize such a compound experimentally due to a half-life of a few ten minutes in the Fr atom. In this paper, by using the first-principles method, we study the structural and electronic properties of FrAu in the B2 structure. The FrAu has a relatively large lattice constant and a relatively small bulk modulus among 310 B2 compounds. The profiles of the electron and phonon band structures of the FrAu are quite similar to those of the CsAu. We predict that the FrAu is included to one of the ionic compounds as well as the RbAu and CsAu., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Honeycomb structure has been frequently observed in two-dimensional (2D) materials. CuAu in the buckled honeycomb (BHC) structure has been synthesized recently, which is the first case of 2D intermetallic compounds. Here, the dynamical stability of 2D $AX$ in the BHC structure, where $A=$ Cu, Ag, and Au and $X$ is a metallic element in the periodic table, is systematically studied by calculating phonon dispersions from first-principles. Among 135 $AX$, more than 50 $AX$ are identified to be dynamically stable. In addition, (i) a relationship between the dynamical stability and the formation energy, (ii) a correlation of dynamical stability between different constituents $A$, (iii) a trend of lattice parameters, and (iv) electronic and magnetic properties are discussed. Furthermore, a stable phase of B11-type AuZr is predicted based on both the result (ii) and the stability relationship between 2D and three-dimensional structures. The present findings stimulate future studies exploring physics and chemistry of 2D intermetallic compounds., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

Finding minimum energy distribution of $N$ charges on a sphere is known as the Thomson problem. Here, we study the vibrational properties of the $N$ charges in the lowest energy state within the harmonic approximation for $10\le N\le 200$ and for selected sizes up to $N=372$. The maximum frequency $\omega_{\rm max}$ increases with $N^{3/4}$, which is rationalized by studying the lattice dynamics of a two-dimensional triangular lattice. The $N$-dependence of $\omega_{\rm max}$ identifies magic numbers of $N=12, 32, 72, 132, 192, 212, 272, 282$, and 372, reflecting both a strong degeneracy of one-particle energies and an icosahedral structure that the $N$ charges form. $N=122$ is not identified as a magic number for $\omega_{\rm max}$ because the former condition is not satisfied. The magic number concept can hold even when an average of high frequencies is considered. The maximum frequency mode at the magic numbers has no anomalously large oscillation amplitude (i.e., not a defect mode)., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

Some of the three-dimensional (3D) crystal structures are constructed by stacking two-dimensional (2D) layers. It remains unclear whether this geometric concept is related to the stability of ordered compounds and whether this can be used to computational materials design. Here, using first principles calculations, we investigate the dynamical stability of copper-based compounds Cu$X$ (a metallic element $X$) in the B$_h$ and L1$_1$ structures constructed from the buckled honeycomb (BHC) structure and in the B2 and L1$_0$ structures constructed from the buckled square (BSQ) structure. We demonstrate that (i) if Cu$X$ in the BHC structure is dynamically stable, those in the B$_h$ and L1$_1$ structures are also stable. Although the interrelationship of the metastability between the BSQ and the 3D structures (B2 and L1$_0$) is not clear, we find that (ii) if Cu$X$ in the B2 (L1$_0$) structure is dynamically stable, that in the L1$_0$ (B2) is unstable, analogous to the metastability relationship between the bcc and the fcc structures in elemental metals. The total energy curves for Cu$X$ along the tetragonal and trigonal paths are also investigated., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures

It has been known that even though two elemental metals, $X$ and $Y$, are immiscible, they can form alloys on surfaces of other metal $Z$. In order to understand such surface alloying of immiscible metals, we study the energetic stability of binary alloys, $XZ$ and $YZ$, in several structures with various coordination numbers (CNs). By analyzing the formation energy modified to enhance the subtle energy difference between metastable structures, we find that $XZ$ and $YZ$ with B2-type structure (CN$=$8) become energetically stable when the $X$ and $Y$ metals form an alloy on the $Z$ metal surface. This is consistent with the experimental results for Pb-Sn alloys on metal surfaces such as Rh(111) and Ru(0001). Some suitable metal substrates are also predicted to form Pb-Sn alloys., Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures

In the warm dense regime, where the electron temperature is increased to the same order of the Fermi temperature, the dynamical stability of elemental metals depends on its electronic band structure as well as its crystal structure. It has been known that phonon hardening occurs due to an enhanced internal pressure caused by electron excitations as in close-packed simple metals, whereas phonon softening occurs at a specific point in the Brillouin zone as in body-centered cubic metals. Here, we investigate the dynamical stability of binary ordered alloys (Au and Cu) in the L1$_0$ and L1$_2$ structures. By performing first principles calculations on phonon dispersions, we demonstrate that warm dense Au-Cu systems show phonon hardening behavior except the lowest frequency phonon mode at point R of AuCu in the L1$_0$ structure. We show that when a phonon mode is stabilized by long-range interatomic interactions at ambient condition, such a phonon will be destabilized by the short-range nature of the warm dense matters., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

Using first principles calculations, the energetic stability of two-dimensional (2D) binary compounds $XY$ is investigated, where $X$ and $Y$ indicate the metallic element from Li to Pb in the periodic table. Here, 1081 compounds in the buckled honeycomb (BHC), buckled square, B2, L1$_0$, and B$_h$ structures are studied. For the compounds that have negative formation energy in the BHC structure or the compounds that can have the B$_h$ structure, the phonon dispersions of the 2D structures are also calculated. We demonstrate that (i) a negative formation energy is neither a sufficient nor necessary condition for yielding the dynamical stability of 2D compounds; and (ii) if a compound in the B$_h$ structure has been synthesized experimentally, that in the BHC structure is dynamically stable., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

The dynamical stability of three-dimensional (3D) Lennard-Jones (LJ) crystals has been studied for many years. The face-centered-cubic and hexagonal close packed structures are dynamically stable, while the body-centered cubic structure is stable only for long range LJ potentials that are characterized by relatively small integer pairs $(m,n)$. Here, we study the dynamical stability of two-dimensional (2D) LJ crystals, where the planar hexagonal, the buckled honeycomb, and the buckled square structures are assumed. We demonstrate that the stability property of 2D and 3D LJ crystals can be classified into four groups depending on $(m,n)$. The instabilities of the planar hexagonal, the buckled square, and the body-centered cubic structures are investigated within analytical expressions. The structure-stability relationship between the LJ crystals and the elemental metals in the periodic table is also discussed., Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures

We study the dynamical stability of elemental two-dimensional (2D) metals from Li to Pb by calculating the phonon band structure from first principles, where 2D structures are assumed to be planer hexagonal, buckled honeycomb, and buckled square lattice structures. We show the relationship between the stability of 2D structures and that of three-dimensional structures. This provides a material design concept for alloys, where the similarity with regard to the stable 2D structures, rather than the energetic stability of alloy, is important to yield dynamically stable alloys., Comment: 14 pages, 57 figures

We study the transient photoluminescence (PL) of photoexcited metals by solving the Boltzmann equation considering the effects of electron-electron (e-e) and electron-phonon (e-ph) collisions, where the e-ph coupling function is calculated from first-principles in order to account for the energy transfer rate between electrons and phonons accurately. We apply the present scheme to the transient PL of silver and demonstrate that the agreement between the theory and experiment is good, where the effect of nonequilibrium electron distribution is significant to fit the experimental data. The effects of the nanoscale roughness at metal surfaces and the e-e umklapp scattering on ultrafast electron dynamics are also discussed., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

Polonium is known as the only simple metal that has the simple cubic (SC) lattice in three dimension. There is a debate about whether the stabilized SC structure is attributed to the scalar relativistic effect or the spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Here, we study another phase, two-dimensional (2D) polonium (poloniumene), by performing density-functional theory calculations. We show that the 2D polonium has the square lattice structure as its ground state and demonstrate that the SOC (beyond the scalar relativistic approximation) suppresses the Peierls instability and is necessary to obtain no imaginary phonon frequencies over the Brillouin zone., Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures

The low temperature electron-phonon (e-ph) relaxation near the surface of noble metals, Cu and Ag, is studied by using the density-functional theory approach. The appearance of the surface phonon mode can give rise to a strong enhancement of the Eliashberg function at low frequency $\omega$. Assuming the Eliashberg function proportional to the square of $\omega$ in the low frequency limit, the e-ph relaxation time obtained from the surface calculations is shorter than that from the bulk calculation. The calculated e-ph relaxation time for the former is in agreement with a recent experiment for thin films., Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures

The absorption of light by a metal disturbs the electron distribution around the Fermi surface. Here, we calculate the phonon dispersion relations of free-electron-like metal, bcc sodium, with a stepwise electron distribution function by using a model pseudo-potential method. The step can behave as a pseudo-Fermi surface, which produces the singularities at specific wavenumbers in the response function. The singularity gives rise to long-range oscillations in the interatomic potential and results in imaginary phonon frequencies around the N point., Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures

The electron-excitation induced bond strength variations in metals have been predicted from density-functional theory calculations and observed experimentally, while the microscopic mechanism has yet to be elucidated. Here, we present a minimal model that reproduces the phonon hardening and softening for fcc- and bcc-structured metals as a result of the electron thermal excitation. We explain why the phonon mode softens at the N point for bcc-structured metals., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

Ultrafast electron dynamics of solids after an absorption of femtosecond laser pulse is governed by electron-electron, electron-phonon, phonon-electron, and phonon-phonon collisions. It is of importance to construct a framework for interpreting experimental observations correctly. In this paper we review recent developments of modeling the relaxation dynamics of solids. We discuss the ultrafast relaxation in respect to the effective temperature dynamics and the excess energy dynamics., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, MRS-J (2018)

We theoretically investigate the energy of the ground state exciton confined to two-dimensional (2D) monolayers with circular shape. Within an effective mass approach employing a nonlocal screening effect on the Coulomb potential energy, we demonstrate how the exciton energy is correlated with the radius of the circle, electron-hole reduced mass, and 2D susceptibility. In addition, we show that a dead layer around the circle edge, into which the electron-hole pair cannot penetrate, is necessary for understanding the energy shift recently observed in monolayer WSe2 quantum dots.

We theoretically investigate the dynamical stability of one-dimensional fullerene polymers by computing the phonon dispersion relations within the atomistic approach. We find that only seven models among 54 models proposed previously [J. Phys. Chem. A 119, 3048 (2015)] are dynamically stable. We show that the low temperature specific heat of them is proportional to the square root of the temperature in a wider range of temperature compared to the case of single-walled carbon nanotubes.

We study the electron and phonon thermalization in simple metals excited by a laser pulse. The thermalization is investigated numerically by solving the Boltzmann transport equation taking into account all the relevant scattering mechanism: the electron-electron, electron-phonon (e-ph), phonon-electron (ph-e), and phonon-phonon (ph-ph) scatterings. In the initial stage of the relaxation, most of the excitation energy is transferred from the electrons to phonons through the e-ph scattering. This creates hot high-frequency phonons due to the ph-e scatterings, followed by an energy redistribution between phonon subsystems through the ph-ph scatterings. This yields an overshoot of the total longitudinal-acoustic phonon energy at a time, across which a crossover occurs from a nonequilibrium state, where the e-ph and ph-e scatterings frequently occur, to a state, where the ph-ph scattering occurs to reach a thermal equilibrium. This picture is quite different from the scenario of the well-known two-temperature model (2TM). The behavior of the relaxation dynamics is compared with those calculated by several models, including the 2TM, the four-temperature model, and nonequilibrium electron or phonon models. The relationship between the relaxation time and the initial distribution function is also discussed., Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures

The description of nonequilibrium states of solids in a simplified manner is a challenge in the field of ultrafast dynamics. Here, the phonon thermalization in solids through the three-phonon scatterings is investigated by solving the Boltzmann transport equation (BTE). The numerical solution of the BTE shows that the transverse acoustic and longitudinal acoustic (LA) phonon temperatures are not well-defined during the relaxation, indicating the breakdown of the quasiequilibrium approximation. The development of hot and cold phonons and the backward energy flow from low to high energy phonons are observed in the initial and final stage of the relaxation, respectively. A minimal model is presented to relate the latter with the power-law decay of the LA phonon energy., Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures

Using the tight-binding approach, we analyze the effect of a one-dimensional superlattice (1DSL) potential on the electronic structure of black phosphorene and transition metal dichalcogenides. We observe that the 1DSL potential results in a decrease of the energy band gap of the two-dimensional (2D) materials. An analytical model is presented to relate the decrease in the direct-band gap to the different orbital characters between the valence band top and conduction band bottom of the 2D materials. The direct-to-indirect gap transition, which occurs under a 1DSL potential with an unequal barrier width, is also discussed.

The quasiparticle (QP) energies, which are minus of the energies required by removing or produced by adding one electron from/to the system, corresponding to the photoemission or inverse photoemission (PE/IPE) spectra, are determined together with the QP wave functions, which are not orthonormal and even not linearly independent but somewhat similar to the normal spin orbitals in the theory of the configuration interaction, by self-consistently solving the QP equation coupled with the equation for the self-energy. The electron density, kinetic and all interaction energies can be calculated using the QP wave functions. We prove in a simple way that the PE/IPE spectroscopy and therefore this QP theory can be applied to an arbitrary initial excited eigenstate. In this proof, we show that the energy-dependence of the self-energy is not an essential difficulty, and the QP picture holds exactly if there is no relaxation mechanism in the system. The validity of the present theory for some initial excited eigenstates is tested using the one-shot GW approximation for several atoms and molecules., Comment: 32 pages, 6 figures

Several models of the charge transfer exciton (CTE) have been proposed to explain its dissociation at the donor-acceptor (DA) interface. However, the underlying physics is still under debate. Here, we derive temperature ($T$)-dependent tight-binding model for an electron-hole pair at the DA interface. The main finding is the existence of the localization-delocalization transition at a critical $T$, which can explain the CTE dissociation. The present study highlights the combined effect of entropy (finite-$T$) and carrier delocalization in the CTE dissociation., Comment: in Phys. Rev. B (2016)

A linear response theory for electron-hole pair density is developed, which constitutes a new theoretical method, and a definition of exciton density in a first-principles context is derived by considering both the electron-hole attractive interaction and the screening effect. This allows the exciton time evolution to be examined. This formulation is applied to a jellium model in order to prove the existence of a transient exciton, and to observe crossover from a transient to a stable exciton in response to decreased electron density. The exciton formation mechanism is also revealed.

Theoretical description of the charge transfer (CT) exciton across the donor-acceptor interface without the use of a completely localized hole (or electron) is a challenge in the field of organic solar cells. We calculate the total wavefunction of the CT exciton by solving an effective two-particle Schrodinger equation for the inhomogeneous dielectric interface. We formulate the magnitude of the CT and construct a minimal model of the CT exciton under the breakdown of inversion symmetry. We demonstrate that both a light hole mass and a hole localization along the normal to the dielectric interface are crucial to yield the CT exciton.

We investigate the low energy behavior of local density of states in metallic C$_{60}$ polymers theoretically. The multichannel bosonization method is applied to electronic band structures evaluated from first principles calculation, by which the effects of electronic correlation and nanoscale corrugation in the atomic configuration are fully taken into account. We obtain a closed-form expression for the power law anomalies in the local density of states, which successfully describes the experimental observation on the \fu polymers in a quantitative manner. An important implication from the closed-form solution is the existence of an experimentally unobserved crossover at nearly a hundred milli-electron volts, beyond which the power law exponent of the \fu polymers should change significantly., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures

We develop a theory to describe energy relaxation of photo-excited carriers in low-temperature ordered states with band gap opening and formulate carrier relaxation time $\tau$ near and below transition temperature $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ by quantifying contributions from different carrier-phonon scatterings to the relaxation rate. The theory explains anomalous experimental observations of $\tau$ in gapped systems. Transverse acoustic (TA) phonon modes play a crucial role in carrier relaxation; their heat capacity determines $\tau$-divergence near $T_{\mathrm{c}}$. The theory is validated by fitting $\tau$ of fullerene polymers onto a theoretical curve., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

The metal-semiconductor transition of peanut-shaped fullerene (C$_{60}$) polymers is clarified by considering the electron-phonon coupling in the uneven structure of the polymers. We established a theory that accounts for the transition temperature $T_c$ reported in a recent experiment and also suggests that $T_c$ is considerably lowered by electron doping or prolonged irradiation during synthesis. The decrease in $T_c$ is an appealing phenomenon with regard to realizing high-conductivity C$_{60}$-based nanowires even at low temperatures., Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures

We reveal that the periodic radius modulation peculiar to one-dimensional (1D) peanut-shaped fullerene (C$_{60}$) polymers exerts a strong influence on their low-frequency phonon states and their interactions with mobile electrons. The continuum approximation is employed to show the zone-folding of phonon dispersion curves, which leads to fast relaxation of a radial breathing mode in the 1D C$_{60}$ polymers. We also formulate the electron-phonon interaction along the deformation potential theory, demonstrating that only a few set of electron and phonon modes yields a significant magnitude of the interaction relevant to the low-temperature physics of the system. The latter finding gives an important implication for the possible Peierls instability of the C$_{60}$ polymers suggested in the earlier experiment., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

We establish a theoretical framework for artificial control of the power-law singularities in Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid states. The exponent governing the power-law behaviors is found to increase significantly with an increase in the amplitude of the periodic electric field modulation applied externally to the system. This field-induced shift in the exponent indicates the tunability of the transport properties of quasi-one-dimensional electron systems., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

Effects of periodic curvature on the the electrical resistivity of corrugated semiconductor films are theoretically considered. The presence of a curvature-induced potential affects the motion of electrons confined to the thin curved film, resulting in a significant resistivity enhancement at specific values of two geometric parameters: the amplitude and period of the surface corrugation. The maximal values of the two parameters in order to observe the corrugation-induced resistivity enhancement in actual experiments are quantified by employing existing material constants., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures