Atom probe tomography is frequently employed to characterize the elemental distribution in solids with atomic resolution. Here we review and discuss the potential of this technique to locally probe chemical bonds. Two processes characterize the bond rupture in laser-assisted field emission, the probability of molecular ions, i.e. the probability that molecular ions (PMI) are evaporated instead of single (atomic) ions, and the probability of multiple events, i.e. the correlated field-evaporation of more than a single fragment (PME) upon laser- or voltage pulse excitation. Here we demonstrate that one can clearly distinguish solids with metallic, covalent, and metavalent bonds based on their bond rupture, i.e. their PME and PMI values. Differences in the field penetration depth can largely explain these differences in bond breaking. These findings open new avenues in understanding and designing advanced materials, since they allow a quantification of bonds in solids on a nanometer scale, as will be shown for several examples. These possibilities would even justify calling the present approach bonding probe tomography (BPT).
The chemical bond is one of the most powerful, yet controversial concepts in chemistry, explaining property trends in solids. Recently, a novel type of chemical bonding has been identified in several higher chalcogenides, characterized by a unique property portfolio, unconventional bond breaking and sharing of about one electron between adjacent atoms. Metavalent bonding is a fundamental type of bonding besides covalent, ionic and metallic bonding, raising the pertinent question, if there is a well-defined transition between metavalent and covalent bonding. For three different pseudo-binary li…
Lattice Parameter is an important material feature in High Entropy Alloy (HEA) Design. Vegards Law is typically used to estimate lattice parameters but is often inaccurate for metal alloys due to an inability to account for charge transfer which can affect atomic volumes. The present study used ab initio simulation to calculate bond lengths between atoms of dissimilar elements in B2 intermetallic compounds which was then combined with a bond counting model to produce a model to estimate the lattice parameters of Refractory BCC HEAS. The model was tested using a supercell method which modeled v…
We study negative thermal expansion (NTE) in model lattices with multiple atoms per cell and first- and second-nearest neighbor interactions using the (anharmonic) Morse potential. By exploring the phase space of neighbor distances and thermal expansion rates of the bonds, we determine the conditions under which NTE emerges. By permitting all bond lengths to expand at different rates, we find that NTE is possible without appealing to fully rigid units. Nearly constant, large-amplitude, isotropic NTE is observed up to the melting temperature in a classical molecular dynamics model of a $\mathrm…
Transmission electron microscopy, scanning transmission electron tomography, and electron energy loss spectroscopy were used to characterize three-dimensional artificial Si nanostructures called "metalattices", focusing on Si metalattices synthesized by high-pressure confined chemical vapor deposition in 30-nm colloidal silica templates with ~7 and ~12 nm "meta-atoms" and ~2 nm "meta-bonds". The "meta-atoms" closely replicate the shape of the tetrahedral and octahedral interstitial sites of the face-entered cubic colloidal silica template. Composed of either amorphous or nanocrystalline silico…
$Li_{2}RuO_{3}$ with a honeycomb structure undergoes a drastic transition from a regular honeycomb lattice with the $C2/m$ space group to a valence bond solid state of the $P2_{1}/m$ space group with an extremely strong dimerization at 550 K. We synthesized $Li_{2}Ru_{1-x}Mn_{x}O_{3}$ with a full solid solution and investigated doping effects on the valence bond solid state as a function of Mn content. The valence bond solid state is found to be stable up to $x = 0.2$, based on our extensive experiments: structural studies, resistivity, and magnetic susceptibility. On the other hand, the exten…
Ionic liquids (ILs) gain much interest as possible electrolytes in the next generation of mixed-solid Li-ion batteries. However, such properties of ionic liquids as melting transition, diffusion, strength and structure of hydrogen bond network remain poorly investigated. Here 2H NMR study of a prototypical ionic liquid [TEA][NTf2] has been performed. We show that the dynamical melting occurs through a dynamically heterogeneous phase stable between 223-277 K and the transition process is characterized by two standard molar enthalpy changes indicating to the multistage nature of the melting. The…
Atomic undercoordination, charge injection, mechanical and thermal activation mediate the properties of a material intrinsically by bond relaxation from one equilibrium to another while the phonon spectrometrics probes the ever-unexpected information of the binding energy density, atomic cohesive energy, single bond force constant, crystal elastic modulus, Debye temperature and the abundance-length-stiffness transition of bonds under perturbation.
Semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) experience stress and charge transfer by embedding materials or ligands and impurity atoms. In return, the environment of NCs experiences a NC stress response which may lead to matrix deformation and propagated strain. Up to now, there is no universal gauge to evaluate the stress impact on NCs and their response as a function of NC size $d_{\mathrm{NC}}$. I deduce geometrical number series as analytical tools to obtain the number of NC atoms $N_{\mathrm{NC}}(d_{\mathrm{NC}}[i])$, bonds between NC atoms $N\mathrm{_{bnd}}(d_{\mathrm{NC}}[i])$ and interface bonds …
Bond strengths in solids computed from a Wannier-type construction of local vibrational modes
School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham（伯明翰大学化学学院）；Department of Chemistry, Southern Methodist University（南方卫理公会大学化学系）；Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM)（联邦材料研究与测试研究所（BAM））
We exploit the intrinsic difference between disordered and crystalline solids to create systems with unusual and exquisitely tuned mechanical properties. To demonstrate the power of this approach, we design materials that are either virtually incompressible or completely auxetic. Disordered networks can be efficiently driven to these extreme limits by removing a very small fraction of bonds via a selected-bond removal procedure that is both simple and experimentally relevant. The procedure relies on the nearly complete absence of any correlation between the contributions of an individual bond …
The object of this study is the kinetic process of solid-liquid first-order phase transition - melting of carbon dioxide CS-I hydrate with various cavity occupation ratios. The work was done within a framework of study on the local structure of water molecules. These include the time depending change of the short-range order at temperatures close to the melting point and comparison with hexagonal ice structure. Using molecular dynamics method, dependencies of the internal energy of the studied systems on the time of heating were found. Jumps in the internal energy of solids in the range at 275…
