The metal to insulator transition of NbO2 has been predicted to be a result of a structural phase transition (SPT) governed by Peierls physics. However, direct observation of the SPT using experimental techniques is still restricted by the extremely high transition temperature (810 °C) and the proclivity for NbO2 to oxidize into Nb2O5 above 400 °C when exposed to air. Here, we address these issues and employ temperature-dependent X-ray spectroscopy to describe the SPT of NbO2 from the bulk to surface. Temperature-dependent extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (T-EXAFS) reveals a gradual weakening of the bulk Nb dimers over a large temperature range, which is indicative of a second-order Peierls mechanism. From these measurements, we determine the critical dimer distance to be 2.77 Å. Our T-EXAFS observations are supported by density functional theory of the phonon dispersion and the electronic density of states of NbO2, which conclude that the dimerization is responsible for the insulating phase. The dimerization does not extend to the topmost layers, where an oxygen rich surface reconstruction is preferred irrespective of temperature even in extremely reducing environments; changes in the low-energy electron diffraction patterns are attributed to oxygen concentration and are independent of the underlying bulk phase transitions of NbO2.

Perturbative schemes utilizing a spectral moment expansion are well known and extensively used for investigating the physics of model Hamiltonians and real material systems (in combination with density functional theory). However, such methods are not always reliable in various parameter regimes such as in the proximity of phase transitions or for strong couplings. Nevertheless, the advantages they offer, in terms of being computationally inexpensive, with real frequency output at zero and finite temperatures, compensate for their deficiencies and offer a quick, qualitative analysis of the system behavior. In this work, we have developed such a method, that can be classified as a multi-orbital iterative perturbation theory (MO-IPT) to study N-fold degenerate and non degenerate Anderson impurity models. As applications of the solver, we have combined the method with dynamical mean field theory to explore lattice models like the single orbital Hubbard model, covalent band insulator and the multi-orbital Hubbard model for density-density type interactions in different parameter regimes. The Hund's coupling effects in case of multiple orbitals is also studied. The limitations and quality of results are gauged through extensive comparison with data from the numerically exact continuous time quantum Monte Carlo method (CTQMC). In the case of the single orbital Hubbard model, covalent band insulators and non degenerate multi-orbital Hubbard models, we obtained an excellent agreement between the Matsubara self-energies of MO-IPT and CTQMC. But for the degenerate multi-orbital Hubbard model, we observe that the agreement with CTQMC results gets better as we move away from particle-hole symmetry. We have integrated MO-IPT with density functional theory based electronic structure methods to study real material systems. As a test case, we have studied the classic, strongly correlated electronic material, SrVO3. A comparison of density of states and photo emission spectrum (PES) with results obtained from different impurity solvers and experiments yields good agreement.

The effect of disorder on lattice vibrational modes has been a topic of interest for several decades. In this work, we employ a Green's function based approach, namely the dynamical cluster approximation (DCA), to investigate phonons in mass disordered systems. Detailed benchmarks with previous exact calculations are used to validate the method in a wide parameter space. An extension of the method, namely the typical medium DCA (TMDCA), is used to study Anderson localization of phonons in three dimensions. We show that, for binary isotopic disorder, lighter impurities induce localized modes beyond the bandwidth of the host system, while heavier impurities lead to a partial localization of the low frequency acoustic modes. For a uniform (box) distribution of masses, the physical spectrum is shown to develop long tails comprising mostly localized modes. The mobility edge separating extended and localized modes, obtained through the TMDCA, agrees well with results from the transfer matrix method. A re-entrance behavior of the mobility edge with increasing disorder is found that is similar to, but somewhat more pronounced than, the behavior in disordered electronic systems. Our work establishes a new computational approach, which recovers the thermodynamic limit, is versatile and computationally inexpensive, to investigate lattice vibrations in disordered lattice systems.

We report the development and application of a new method for carrying out computational investigations of the effects of mass and force-constant (FC) disorder on phonon spectra. The method is based on the recently developed typical medium dynamical cluster approach (TMDCA), which is a Green's function approach. Excellent quantitative agreement with previous exact diagonalization results establishes the veracity of the method. Application of the method to a model system of binary mass and FC-disordered system leads to several findings. A narrow resonance, significantly below the van Hove singularity, that has been termed as the boson peak, is seen to emerge for low soft particle concentrations. We show, using the typical phonon spectrum, that the states constituting the boson peak cross over from being completely localized to being extended as a function of increasing soft particle concentration. In general, an interplay of mass and FC disorder is found to be cooperative in nature, enhancing phonon localization over all frequencies. However, for certain range of frequencies, and depending on material parameters, FC disorder can delocalize the states that were localized by mass disorder, and vice-versa. Modeling vacancies as weakly bonded sites with vanishing mass, we find that vacancies, even at very low concentrations, are extremely effective in localizing phonons. Thus, inducing vacancies is proposed as a promising route for efficient thermoelectrics. Finally, we use model parameters corresponding to the alloy system, Ni1−xPtx, and show that mass disorder alone is insufficient to explain the pseudogap in the phonon spectrum; the concomitant presence of FC disorder is necessary. arXiv:1904.05324v2 [cond-mat.dis-nn]

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