Browsing by Author "Harikrishnan, G."

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Effect of pressure on the band structure of BC3
(2016) Manju, M.S.; Harikrishnan, G.; Ajith, K.M.; Valsakumar, M.C.
Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were carried out to study the effect of pressure on the band structure of two dimensional BC3 sheet. BC3 is a semiconductor at ambient conditions having a band gap of ~0.3 eV. Electronic structure calculations are carried out on BC3 at pressures of 5, 20, 50 and 100 GPa. The system shows a semiconductor - metal transition by the application of pressure without any structural transition. � 2016 Author(s).
Evolutionary algorithm based structure search for hard ruthenium carbides
(Institute of Physics, 2015) Harikrishnan, G.; Ajith, K.M.; Chandra, S.; Valsakumar, M.C.
An exhaustive structure search employing evolutionary algorithm and density functional theory has been carried out for ruthenium carbides, for the three stoichiometries Ru1C1, Ru2C1 and Ru3C1, yielding five lowest energy structures. These include the structures from the two reported syntheses of ruthenium carbides. Their emergence in the present structure search in stoichiometries, unlike the previously reported ones, is plausible in the light of the high temperature required for their synthesis. The mechanical stability and ductile character of all these systems are established by their elastic constants, and the dynamical stability of three of them by the phonon data. Rhombohedral structure is found to be energetically the most stable one in Ru1C1 stoichiometry and hexagonal structure , the most stable in Ru3C1 stoichiometry. RuC-Zinc blende system is a semiconductor with a band gap of 0.618 eV while the other two stable systems are metallic. Employing a semi-empirical model based on the bond strength, the hardness of RuC-Zinc blende is found to be a significantly large value of ?37 GPa while a fairly large value of ?21GPa is obtained for the RuC-Rhombohedral system. The positive formation energies of these systems show that high temperature and possibly high pressure are necessary for their synthesis. © 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd.
Vibrational spectra of Ruthenium Carbide structures yielded by the structure search employing evolutionary algorithm
(Elsevier Ltd, 2015) Harikrishnan, G.; Ajith, K.M.; Chandra, S.; Valsakumar, M.C.
Out of the three dynamically stable structures of Ruthenium Carbides yielded by the exhaustive structure search employing evolutionary algorithm, Born effective charges are computed for the semiconducting RuC in Zinc blende structure using density functional perturbation theory. Using the phonon frequencies and the Born effective charge tensors of Ru and C in this structure, infrared spectrum is generated for this system. Computations of these dynamical quantities and IR spectra from first principles can be helpful in the unambiguous determination of the stoichiometry and structure by comparison of the experimental measurements with the computational predictions. The positive formation energies of the three systems show that high pressure and possibly high temperature may be necessary for their synthesis. Formation energies of these systems at different pressures are computed. One of the structurally stable systems, Ru3C with hexagonal structure (P6¯m2), has negative formation energy at 200 GPa. The system reported from the first synthesis of Ruthenium Carbide also has the same symmetry, though it has a different stoichiometry. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.