Faculty Publications

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    Pressure-induced variation of structural, elastic, vibrational, electronic, thermodynamic properties and hardness of Ruthenium Carbides
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2016) Harikrishnan, H.; Ajith, K.M.; Natarajan, S.; Chandra, S.; Mundachali Cheruvalath, V.
    Three of the five structures obtained from the evolutionary algorithm based structure search of Ruthenium Carbide systems in the stoichiometries RuC, Ru2C and Ru3C are relaxed at different pressures in the range 0-200 GPa and the pressure-induced variation of their structural, elastic, dynamical, electronic and thermodynamic properties as well as hardness is investigated in detail. No structural transition is present for these systems in this pressure range. RuC-Zinc blende is mechanically and dynamically unstable close to 100 GPa. RuC-Rhombohedral and Ru3C-Hexagonal retain mechanical and dynamical stability up to 200 GPa. For all three systems the electronic bands and density of states spread out with pressure and the band gap increases with pressure for the semiconducting RuC-Zinc blende. From the computed IR spectrum of RuC-Zinc blende at 50 GPa it is noted that the IR frequency increases with pressure. Using a semi-empirical model for hardness it is estimated that hardness of all three systems consistently increases with pressure. The hardness of RuC-Zinc blende increases towards the superhard regime up to the limiting pressure of its mechanical stability while that of RuC-Rhombohedral becomes 30 GPa at the pressure of 150 GPa. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    Evolutionary algorithm based structure search and first-principles study of B12C3polytypes
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2017) Harikrishnan, H.; Ajith, K.M.; Chandra, S.; Mundachali Cheruvalath, V.
    The structure search based on evolutionary algorithm has yielded six unique Boron Carbide structures in B12C3stoichiometry, three of them with negative formation energies. Their formation energies lie within a band of 166 meV/atom, so they can be formed together in any optimal high temperature synthesis of B12C3and they are thermodynamically stable at temperatures up to 660 K. This work is the first independent confirmation using structure search that B11Cp(CBC) is the ground state structure of B12C3stoichiometry. New structures like the 14-atom-cage and the supercell (B11Cp)(B10Cpe 2)(CBC)(CBB) have also emerged in the structure search. Five structures have base-centered monoclinic symmetry and the supercell has triclinic symmetry, implying that the determination of monoclinic symmetry in B12C3by experimental measurements is an option for further inquiry. The mechanical stability of these systems are established through the analysis of their elastic constants and their dynamical stability from the phonon data. The high value of Bulk modulus (?250 GPa) indicates their high hardness and the B/G value confirms their brittle nature. The electronic structure shows that they are semiconductors with a significant reduction in the band gap when the structure does not contain the CBC chain. The curve fitting of the cumulative IR spectrum against the experimental spectrum implies that the presence of B11Cp(CBC) in the ground state composition could mostly be through structures of larger unit cells. The hardness values of these systems estimated by using the semi-empirical model based on bond strength are in excellent agreement with the experimental values. For the four structures with chain the hardness values are close to the superhard regime (>40 GPa). © 2016 Elsevier B.V.