MaX paper

The authors investigate how parameters of the model of semi-infinite graphene based on a graphene nanoribbon under periodic boundary conditions affect the accuracy of ab initio calculations of reactions at graphene edges by the example of the first stage of reconstruction of zigzag graphene edges, formation of a pentagon-heptagon pair. It is shown that to converge properly the results, the nanoribbon should consist of at least 6 zigzag rows and periodic images of the pair along the nanoribbon axis should be separated by at least 6 hexagons.

Fermi level pinning (FLP) in metal-MoS₂ contacts induces large Schottky barrier heights which in turn results in large contact resistances. In this work, we made use of Density Functional Theory (DFT) to study the origin of FLP in MoS₂ contacts with a variety of metals. We also reported how the Fermi level de-pinning could be attained by controlling the distance between the metal and MoS₂. In this respect, the metal-MoS₂ contacts can be engineered by means of the insertion of proper buffer layers and the use of back-gated structures.

In this paper, the authors report on an extensive study of the viscosity of liquid water at near-ambient conditions, performed within the Green-Kubo theory of linear response and equilibrium ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD), based on density-functional theory (DFT).

Engineering oxygen octahedra rotation patterns in ABO3 perovskites is a powerful route to design functional materials. Here we propose a strategy that exploits point defects that create local electric dipoles and couple to the oxygen sublattice, enabling direct actuation on the rotational degrees of freedom. This approach, which relies on substituting an A site with a smaller ion, paves a way to couple dynamically octahedra rotations to external electric fields.

The authors perform a density functional theory study of the effects of oxygen adsorption on the structural and electronic properties of Gr/Co(0001) and Gr/Co/Ir(111) interfaces. In both interfaces, the graphene-Co distance increases with increasing O concentration. The oxygen intercalation effectively decreases the electronic interaction, preventing the hybridization of graphene states with Co d orbitals, hence (partly) restoring the typical Dirac cone of pristine graphene.

In this paper, the authors investigate the performance of beyond-GW approaches in many-body perturbation theory by addressing atoms described within the spherical approximation via a dedicated numerical treatment based on B-splines and spherical harmonics. The authors consider the GW, second Born (2B), and GW + second order screened exchange (GW+SOSEX) self-energies and use them to obtain ionization potentials from the quasi-particle equation (QPE) solved perturbatively on top of independent-particle calculations.

In this article appearing on Physical Reviews B, an international team comprised of young researchers from Italy and Switzerland show how, contrary to popular assumptions, predictions from machine learning potentials almost exclusively occur in an extrapolation regime. 

In recent years, modeling and simulation of materials have become indispensable to complement experiments in materials design. High-throughput simulations increasingly aid researchers in selecting the most promising materials for experimental studies or by providing insights inaccessible by experiment. However, this often requires multiple simulation tools to meet the modeling goal.

The screening of Coulomb interaction controls many-body physics in carbon nanotubes, as it tunes the range and strength of the force that acts on charge carriers and binds electron-hole pairs into excitons. In doped tubes, the effective Coulomb interaction drives the competition between Luttinger liquid and Wigner crystal, whereas in undoped narrow-gap tubes it dictates the Mott or excitonic nature of the correlated insulator observed at low temperature.

Coherence and de-coherence are the most fundamental steps that follow the initial photo-excitation occurring in typical pump-and-probe experiments. Indeed, the initial external laser pulse transfers coherence to the system in terms of creation of multiple electron–hole pairs excitation. The excitation concurs both to the creation of a finite carriers density and to the appearance of induced electromagnetic fields. The two effects, to a very first approximation, can be connected to the simple concepts of populations and oscillations.