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1. Stabilizing polar phases in binary metal oxides by hole doping

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.7.044412  

   Cao, Tengfei; Ren, Guodong; Shao, Ding-Fu; Tsymbal, Evgeny Y.; Mishra, Rohan (April 2023, Physical Review Materials)

   The recent observation of ferroelectricity in the metastable phases of binary metal oxides, such as HfO2, ZrO2, Hf0.5Zr0.5O2, and Ga2O3, has garnered a lot of attention. These metastable ferroelectric phases are typically stabilized using epitaxial strain, alloying, or defect engineering. Here, we propose that hole doping plays a key role in the stabilization of polar phases in binary metal oxides. Using first-principles density-functional-theory calculations, we show that holes in these oxides mainly occupy one of the two oxygen sublattices. This hole localization, which is more pronounced in the polar phase than in the nonpolar phase, lowers the electrostatic energy of the system, and makes the polar phase more stable at sufficiently large concentrations. We demonstrate that this electrostatic mechanism is responsible for stabilization of the ferroelectric phase of HfO2 aliovalently doped with elements that introduce holes to the system, such as La and N. Finally, we show that spontaneous polarization in HfO2 is robust to hole doping, and a large polarization persists even under a high concentration of holes. 

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2. Structural phase purification of bulk HfO ₂ :Y through pressure cycling

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2312571121  

   Musfeldt, J. L.; Singh, Sobhit; Fan, Shiyu; Gu, Yanhong; Xu, Xianghan; Cheong, S.-W.; Liu, Z.; Vanderbilt, David; Rabe, Karin M. (January 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   We combine synchrotron-based infrared absorption and Raman scattering spectroscopies with diamond anvil cell techniques and first-principles calculations to explore the properties of hafnia under compression. We find that pressure drives HfO ${}_2$:7%Y from the mixed monoclinic ( $P{2}_1/c$) $+$antipolar orthorhombic ( $\mathit{Pbca}$) phase to pure antipolar orthorhombic ( $\mathit{Pbca}$) phase at approximately 6.3 GPa. This transformation is irreversible, meaning that upon release, the material is kinetically trapped in the $\mathit{Pbca}$metastable state at 300 K. Compression also drives polar orthorhombic ( $Pca{2}_1$) hafnia into the tetragonal ( $P{4}_2/nmc$) phase, although the latter is not metastable upon release. These results are unified by an analysis of the energy landscape. The fact that pressure allows us to stabilize targeted metastable structures with less Y stabilizer is important to preserving the flat phonon band physics of pure HfO ${}_2$. 

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3. The phase diagrams of beryllium and magnesium oxide at megabar pressures

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-648X/ac4b2a  

   Wu, Jizhou; González-Cataldo, Felipe; Soubiran, François; Militzer, Burkhard (February 2022, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter)

   Abstract We perform ab initio simulations of beryllium (Be) and magnesium oxide (MgO) at megabar pressures and compare their structural and thermodynamic properties. We make a detailed comparison of our two recently derived phase diagrams of Be (Wu et al 2021 Phys. Rev. B 104 014103) and MgO (Soubiran and Militzer 2020 Phys. Rev. Lett. 125 175701) using the thermodynamic integration technique, as they exhibit striking similarities regarding their shape. We explore whether the Lindemann criterion can explain the melting temperatures of these materials through the calculation of the Debye temperature at high pressure. From our free energy calculations, we find that the melting line of both materials is well represented by the Simon–Glazel fit T m ( P ) = T 0 (1 + P / a ) 1/ c , where T 0 = 1564 K, a = 15.8037 GPa and c = 2.4154 for Be, while T 0 = 3010 K, a = 10.5797 GPa and c = 2.8683 for the MgO in the B1. For the B2 phase, we use the values a = 26.1163 GPa and c = 2.2426. Both materials exhibit negative Clapeyron slopes on the boundaries between the two solid phases that are strongly affected by anharmonic effects, which also influence the location of the solid–solid–liquid triple point. We find that the quasi-harmonic approximation underestimates the stability range of the low-pressure phases, namely hcp for Be and B1 for MgO. We also compute the phonon dispersion relations at low and high pressure for each of the phases of these materials, and also explore how the phonon density of states is modified by temperature. Finally, we derive secondary shock Hugoniot curves in addition to the principal Hugoniot curve for both materials, and study their offsets in pressure between solid and liquid branches. 

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4. In-situ determination of the HfO2 -Ta2O5 -temperature phase diagram up to 3000°C

   https://doi.org/10.1111/jace.16271  

   McCormack, Scott J.; Tseng, Kuo-Pin; Weber, Richard J.; Kapush, Denys; Ushakov, Sergey V.; Navrotsky, Alexandra; Kriven, Waltraud M. (December 2018, Journal of the American Ceramic Society)

   The previously unknown experimental HfO2–Ta2O5‐temperature phase diagram has been elucidated up to 3000°C using a quadrupole lamp furnace and conical nozzle levitator system equipped with a CO2 laser, in conjunction with synchrotron X‐ray diffraction. These in‐situ techniques allowed the determination of the following: (a) liquidus, solidus, and invariant transformation temperatures as a function of composition from thermal arrest experiments, (b) determination of equilibrium phases through testing of reversibility via in‐situ X‐ray diffraction, and (c) molar volume measurements as a function of temperature for equilibrium phases. From these, an experimental HfO2–Ta2O5‐temperature phase diagram has been constructed which is consistent with the Gibbs Phase Rule. 

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5. Catalogue of phonon modes in several cuprate high-temperature superconductors from density functional theory

   https://doi.org/10.21468/SciPostPhysCore.6.1.018  

   Jabusch, Noah J.; Dayal, Pavan; Kemper, Alexander F. (January 2023, SciPost Physics Core)

   Cuprates are promising candidates for study in developing highertemperature superconductors. A thorough understanding of a material’sphonon modes enables further investigation of its emergent properties,however, no complete reference of the phonon modes exists. Here, usingdensity functional theory, we evaluate the phonon frequencies and atomicdisplacements for La2CuO4,Bi2Sr2CuO6,and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8,in their tetragonal structures. The phonon modes for all materials agreewith those expected from space group symmetry and display instabilitiescorresponding to known low-temperature structural phase transitions. 

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