We report many-body perturbation theory calculations of excited-state properties of distorted 1-T diamond-chain monolayer rhenium disulfide (ReS2) and diselenide (ReSe2). Electronic self-energy substantially enhances their quasiparticle band gaps and, surprisingly, converts monolayer ReSe2 to a direct-gap semiconductor, which was, however, regarded to be an indirect one by density-functional-theory calculations. Their optical absorption spectra are dictated by strongly bound excitons. Unlike hexagonal structures, the lowest-energy bright exciton of distorted 1-T ReS2 exhibits a perfect figure-8 shape polarization dependence but those of ReSe2 only exhibit a partial polarization dependence, which results from two nearly-degenerated bright excitons whose polarization preferences are not aligned. Our first-principles calculations are in agreement with experiments and pave the way for optoelectronic applications.
We present a first-principles study of excitonic self-trapping in diamond. Our calculation provides evidence for self-trapping of the 1s core exciton and gives a coherent interpretation of recent experimental X-ray absorption and emission data. Self-trapping does not occur in the case of a single valence exciton. We predict, however, that self-trapping should occur in the case of a valence biexciton. This process is accompanied by a large local relaxation of the lattice which could be observed experimentally.
First-principles density functional theory methods are used to investigate the structure, energetics, and vibrational motions of the neutral vacancy defect in diamond. The measured optical absorption spectrum demonstrates that the tetrahedral $T_d$ point group symmetry of pristine diamond is maintained when a vacancy defect is present. This is shown to arise from the presence of a dynamic Jahn-Teller distortion that is stabilised by large vibrational anharmonicity. Our calculations further demonstrate that the dynamic Jahn-Teller-distorted structure of $T_d$ symmetry is lower in energy than th…
We present results of ultrasonic measurements on a single crystal of the distorted diamond-chain compound azurite Cu$_3$(CO$_3$)$_2$(OH)$_2$. Pronounced elastic anomalies are observed in the temperature dependence of the longitudinal elastic mode $c_{22}$ which can be assigned to the relevant magnetic interactions in the system and their couplings to the lattice degrees of freedom. From a quantitative analysis of the magnetic contribution to $c_{22}$ the magneto-elastic coupling $G$ = $\partial J_2$/$\partial ε_b$ can be determined, where $J_2$ is the intra-dimer coupling constant and $ε_b$ th…
The electronic structure and dielectric properties of the diamond, body centered cubic diamond (bc8), and hexagonal diamond (lonsdaleite) phases of carbon are computed using density functional theory and many-body perturbation theory with the emphasis on the excitonic picture of the solid phases relevant in the regimes of high-pressure physics and warm dense matter. We also discuss the capabilities of reproducing the inelastic x-ray scattering spectra in comparison with the existing models in light of recent x-ray scattering experiments on carbon and carbon bearing materials in the Megabar ran…
The existence of polyexcitons, the $N$-body complexes of excitons for $N > 2$ in 3D bulk systems, has been controversial for more than 40 years since its first theoretical suggestion. We investigated the stability of fundamental excitonic complexes in diamond numerically with the stochastic variational method (SVM) and an explicitly correlated Gaussian (ECG) basis. The electron-hole many-body system is described by an effective mass Hamiltonian. Our model includes the effective mass anisotropy and multiple valley and band degrees of freedom. We show that the excitons, trions, biexcitons, charg…
The magnetic Ln$^{3+}$ ions in the fergusonite and scheelite crystal structures form a distorted or stretched diamond lattice which is predicted to host exotic magnetic ground states. In this study, polycrystalline samples of the fergusonite orthotantalates $M$-LnTaO$_4$ (Ln = Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er) are synthesized and then characterized using powder diffraction and bulk magnetometry and heat capacity. TbTaO$_4$ orders antiferromagnetically at 2.25 K into a commensurate magnetic cell with $\vec{k}=0$, magnetic space group 14.77 ($P2_1$$'/c$) and Tb moments parallel to the $a$-axis. No…
We have carried out quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations of silicon crystal focusing on the accuracy and systematic biases that affect the electronic structure characteristics. The results show that 64 and 216 atom supercells provide an excellent consistency for extrapolated energies per atom in the thermodynamic limit for ground, excited, and ionized states. We have calculated the ground state cohesion energy with both $\textit{systematic and statistical errors}$ below $\approx$0.05 eV. The ground state exhibits a fixed-node error of only $1.3(2)\%$ of the correlation energy, suggesting an …
We present a density functional theory analysis of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect complex located at or close to the core of 30$^\circ$ and 90$^\circ$ partial glide dislocations in diamond. Formation energies, electronic densities of states, structural deformations, hyperfine structure and zero-field splitting parameters of NV centers in such structurally distorted environments are analyzed. The formation energies of the NV centers are up to 3 eV lower at the dislocation cores compared to the bulk values of crystalline diamond. We found that the lowest energy configuration…
Using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Raman spectroscopy techniques we investigate the incorporation of Manganese (Mn) in monolayer (1L)-MoS$_2$ grown on sapphire substrates by microcavity based chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. These layers are coated with different amount of Mn by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique and temperature dependent photo-luminescence (PL) spectroscopic study has helped us in understanding how such deposition affects the dynamics of excitonic recombination in this system. The study further reveals two distinctly di…
Strong electron-electron interaction in ultraflat edge states can be responsible for correlated phases of matter, such as magnetism, charge density wave or superconductivity. Here we consider the diamond(111) surface that, after Pandey reconstruction, presents zig-zag carbon chains, generating a flat surface band. By performing full structural optimization with hybrid functionals and neglecting spin polarization, we find that a substantial dimerization ($0.090$ Å / $0.076$ Å bond disproportionation in the PBE0/HSE06) occurs on the chains; a structural effect absent in calculations based on the…
A robust and efficient frequency dependent and non-local exchange-correlation $f_{xc}(r,r';ω)$ is derived by imposing time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) to reproduce the many-body diagrammatic expansion of the Bethe-Salpeter polarization function. As an illustration, we compute the optical spectra of LiF, \sio and diamond and the finite momentum transfer energy-loss spectrum of LiF. The TDDFT results reproduce extremely well the excitonic effects embodied in the Bethe-Salpeter approach, both for strongly bound and resonant excitons. We provide a working expression for $f_{xc}$ th…
A quantitative analysis of the excitonic luminescence efficiency in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is carried out by cathodoluminescence in the ultraviolet range and compared with zinc oxide and diamond single crystals. A high quantum yield value of ~50% is found for hBN at 10 K comparable to that of direct bandgap semiconductors. This bright luminescence at 215 nm remains stable up to room temperature, evidencing the strongly bound character of excitons in bulk hBN. Ab initio calculations of the exciton dispersion confirm the indirect nature of the lowest-energy exciton whose binding energy is…
Single-layer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) can adopt two distinct structures corresponding to different coordination of the metal atoms. TMDCs adopting the T-type structure exhibit a rich and diverse set of phenomena, including charge density waves (CDW) in a $\sqrt{13}\times\sqrt{13}$ supercell pattern in TaS$_2$ and TaSe$_2$, and a possible excitonic insulating phase in TiSe$_2$. These properties make the T-TMDCs desirable components of layered heterostructure devices. In order to predict the emergent properties of combinations of different layered materials, one needs simple and …
We synthesized the 5d1-transition metal oxides AOsO4 (A = K, Rb, Cs) by solid-state reaction, and performed structure determination and magnetic and heat capacity measurements. It was found that they crystallize in a scheelite (A = K and Rb) or a quasi-scheelite structure (A = Cs) comprising of distorted diamond lattices of septivalent Os (d1) ions tetrahedrally coordinated by four oxide ions without local inversion symmetry; hence an antisymmetric spin-orbit coupling is expected in the crystals. The K and Rb compounds have Weiss temperatures of theta = -66 and -18 K, effective magnetic moment…
