Related papers: Electronic origin of the orthorhombic Cmca structu…
Simple cubic structure with one atom in the unit cell found in compressed calcium is contrintuitive with regards to traditional view on tendency of transition to densely packed structures on the increase of pressure. To understand this…
Elements of group I in the Periodic table have valence electrons of s-type and are usually considered as simple metals. Crystal structures of these elements at ambient pressure are close-packed and high-symmetry of bcc and fcc types,…
The binary (simple metal) phase diagram Au-Cd contains a number of intermetallic compounds with various distortions, superlattices and vacancies. To understand the reasons of these structural complexities and their phase stability, we…
Recent high-pressure x-ray diffraction studies of alkali metals revealed unusual complex structures that follow the body-centered and face-centered cubic structures on compression. The structural sequence of potassium under compression to 1…
Lithium - the lightest alkali metal - exhibits unexpected structures and electronic behaviour at high pressures. As the heavier alkalis, Li is bcc at ambient pressure and transforms first to fcc (at 7.5 GPa). The post-fcc high-pressure form…
The simple alkali metal Na, that crystallizes in a body-centred cubic structure at ambient pressure, exhibits a wealth of complex phases at extreme conditions as found by experimental studies. The analysis of the mechanism of stabilization…
Binary alloy phases of the noble metals with main group elements are analyzed in relation to body centered cubic structure with orthorhombic and hexagonal distortions. Stability of these distorted phases is considered on the base of the…
An incommensurate modulated structure was found recently in a light group V element phosphorous in the phase P-IV stable in the pressure range 107-137 GPa. We consider configurations of the Brillouin zone and Fermi sphere within a…
Group I elements - alkali metals Li, Na, K, Rb and Cs - are examples of simple metals with one s electron in the valence band. Under pressure these elements display unusually complex structural behaviour transforming from close-packed to…
Crystal structures of simple metals and binary alloy phases based on the close-packed hexagonal structure are analyzed within the model of Fermi sphere-Brillouin zone interactions to understand distortions and superlattices. Examination of…
Alkali metals display unexpected properties at high pressure, including emergence of low symmetry crystal structures, that appear to occur due to enhanced electronic correlations among the otherwise nearly-free conduction electrons. We…
We present a unifying theory for the observed complex structures of the sp-bonded elements under pressure based on nearly free electron picture (NFE). In the intermediate pressure regime the dominant contribution to crystal structure arises…
Collapse modes in compressed simple cubic (SC) and body-centered cubic (BCC) periodic arrangements of elastic frictionless beads were studied numerically using the discrete element method. Under pure hydrostatic compression, the SC…
Pressure-induced transitions from ordered intermetallic phases to substitutional alloys to semi-ordered phases were studied in a series of bismuth tellurides. Using angle-dispersive x-ray diffraction, the compounds Bi4Te5, BiTe, and Bi2Te…
Using first-principles DFT calculations, we analyze the origin of the different crystal structures, optical and magnetic properties of two basic families of layered fluoride materials with formula A2MF4 (M = Ag, Cu, Ni, Mn; A = K, Cs, Rb).…
Cohesion mechanism of cubic approximant crystals of newly discovered binary quasicrystals, Cd$_6$M (M=Yb and Ca), are studied theoretically. It is found that stabilization due to alloying is obtained if M is an element with low-lying…
The semimetallic Group V elements display a wealth of correlated electron phenomena due to a small indirect band overlap that leads to relatively small, but equal, numbers of holes and electrons at the Fermi energy with high mobility. Their…
Due to increased interest in the unusual magnetic and transport behavior of MnSi and its possible relation to its crystal structure (B20) which has unusual coordination and lacks inversion symmetry, we provide a detailed analysis of the…
Discovery of the incommensurate structure in the element Ba under pressure 15 years ago was followed by findings of a series of similar structures in other compressed elements. Incommensurately modulated structures of the host-guest type…
Based on the refined crystal structure comprised of columns of 3*4 planar blocks of NbO6 octahedra and first principles electronic structure methods, we find that orthorhombic (o)-Nb$_{12}$O$_{29}$ introduces a new class of transition metal…