Abstract
We use a combination of x-ray diffraction, total scattering, and quantum mechanical calculations to determine the mechanism responsible for hydration-driven contraction in . The inclusion of molecules within the network drives the concerted formation of new bonds to give one-dimensional strings. The topology of the network is such that there is no unique choice for the string trajectories: the same local changes in coordination can propagate with a large number of different periodicities. Consequently, is heavily disordered, with each configuration of strings forming a dense aperiodic “spaghetti.” This new connectivity contracts the unit cell via large shifts in the Zr and W atom positions. Fluctuations of the undistorted parent structure towards this spaghetti phase emerge as the key negative thermal expansion (NTE) phonon modes in itself. The large relative density of NTE phonon modes in actually reflects the degeneracy of volume-contracting spaghetti excitations, itself a function of the particular topology of this remarkable material.
- Received 13 April 2018
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.265501
© 2018 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Focus
It’s the Heat and the Humidity—Two Ways a Crystal Shrinks
Published 29 June 2018
The mechanisms by which a material contracts on heating and on absorbing water turn out to be intimately connected.
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