Evolutionary algorithm based structure search for hard ruthenium carbides

Abstract

An exhaustive structure search employing evolutionary algorithm and density functional theory has been carried out for ruthenium carbides, for the three stoichiometries Ru<inf>1</inf>C<inf>1</inf>, Ru<inf>2</inf>C<inf>1</inf> and Ru<inf>3</inf>C<inf>1</inf>, 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 Ru<inf>1</inf>C<inf>1</inf> stoichiometry and hexagonal structure , the most stable in Ru<inf>3</inf>C<inf>1</inf> 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.