Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-18T18:19:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Nilton Ferreira Frazao.pdf: 1298809 bytes, checksum: 5aca0b703a735a7fb605b7bdee658bdd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-03-30 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Recently, the existence of nanoribbon of Boron Nitride with finite size was discovered experimentally, in porous nanoesferas of BN (100-400 nm of diameter), synthesized for the reaction of B2O3 with carbon spheres contend nanoporos filled for Nitrogen to a temperature of 17500C. However a theoretical inquiry of the properties of this nanometerial did not exist. Then, in this present work, we carry through simulation of molecular mechanics using field of universal force (forcefild) to optimize the structure of some of these nanoribbon of Boron Nitride, with objective to find a conformation more steady, that is, of lesser energy for these nanostructures. Later, we investigate the electronic properties of these nanoribbon of Boron Nitride (NRBN) in the finite form (not-periodic) of two types: nanoribbon of Boron Nitride of the type to armchair (a-NRBN) and nanoribbon of Boron Nitride of the type zigzag (z-NRBN). The study of these properties they had been carried through of calculations of first principles based in the Density Functional Theory, with the local density approximation (LDA). Through our calculations, we observe that all the nanoribbon are metallic when we made the analysis of the density of states (DOS). Result not waited, but surprising, therefore of literature we know that material nanostructuralized of Boron Nitride they are always semiconductors. However, our calculations had shown that as much a-NRBN as z-NRBN had presented a conducting electronic character. The simulations had been carried through for many cases of nanoribbon of width (L) and length (C), forming a pair of indices (L, C), with the objective to facilitate the identification of these nanostructures. However we will present the results of but twelve of these, being: (1,3), (1,6), (1,9), (2,3), (2,6) e (2,9) in such a way of the types a-NRBN and z-NRBN. / Recentemente, foi descoberto experimentalmente a existência de Nanofitas de Nitreto de Boro (BN) de tamanho finito, em nanoesferas porosas de BN (100-400 nm de diâmetro), sintetizada pela reação de B2O3 com esferas de carbono contendo nanoporos preenchidos por Nitrogênio a uma temperatura de 17500C. No entanto não existia uma investigação teórica das propriedades desses nanocompósitos. Então, neste presente trabalho, realizamos simulações de mecânica molecular usando campo de força universal (forcefild) para otimizar a estrutura de algumas destas nanofitas de Nitreto de Boro, com objetivo de encontrar uma conformação mais estável, ou seja, de menor energia para essas nanoestruturas. Depois, investigamos as propriedades eletrônicas dessas nanofitas de Nitreto de Boro (NRBN) na forma finita (não-periódica) de dois tipos: nanofitas de Nitreto de Boro do tipo armchair (a-NRBN) e nanofitas de Nitreto de Boro do tipo zigzag (z-NRBN). O estudo destas propriedades foram realizados através de cálculos de primeiros princípios baseados na Teoria do Funcional da Densidade, com a aproximação da densidade local (LDA). Através de nossos cálculos, observamos que todas as nanofitas são metálicas quando fizemos a análise da densidade de estados eletrônicos (DOS). Resultado não esperado, mas surpreendente, pois da literatura sabemos que materiais nanoestruturados de Nitreto de Boro são sempre semicondutores. No entanto, nossos cálculos mostraram que tanto as a- NRBN como as z-NRBN apresentaram um caráter eletrônico condutor. As simulações foram realizadas para muitos casos de nanofitas de largura (L) e comprimento (C), formando um par de índices (L, C), com o objetivo de facilitar a identificação dessas nanoestruturas. No entanto apresentaremos os resultados de apenas doze dessas, sendo: (1,3), (1,6), (1,9), (2,3), (2,6) e (2,9) tanto dos tipos a-NRBN e z-NRBN.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-18T18:19:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Wesdney dos Santos Melo.pdf: 3867399 bytes, checksum: 9eb817cf696dfb625968d6de8e41101c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-18 / FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA E AO DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTIFICO E TECNOLÓGICO DO MARANHÃO / In this work we studied the structural and electronics properties (10; 0)@(17; 0) of double wall BN nanotubes bundle without intercalation and intercalated with the H2SO4 molecule, submitted to variations of hydrostatic pressure. For to study such properties we used the ab initio method employing density functional theory in the approach of the generalized gradient approximation for the exchange and correlation terms. All the simulations were performed using the SIESTA code. In the analysis of all results we observed that the traverse circular section of the nanotubos suffers a structural modification when the applied pressure around 1 GPa both system. Another structural change observed, both systems, appears around 10 GPa. The analysis the electronic properties was accomplished through the bands structure, where it was observed that the two systems considered are semiconductors, but with reduction in the energy gap. The analysis of the population of Mülliken, in the case of the doped system with H2SO4 molecule, shows that the nanotubes transfer charge to H2SO4 molecule, and the transference increases with pressure. / No presente trabalho estudamos as propriedades estruturais e eletrônicas de bundles de nanotubos de BN de dupla camada (10; 0)@(17; 0) sem intercalação e intercalados com a molécula H2SO4, submetidos à variação de pressão hidrostática. Para estudar tais propriedades usamos o método ab initio, baseado na teoria do funcional da densidade e da aproximação do gradiente generalizado para o termo de troca e correlação. Para realizar essas simulações utilizamos o código SIESTA. Realizamos a análise de todos os resultados obtidos e observamos que a seção transversal circular dos nanotubos sofre uma modificação geométrica quando a pressão aplicada é em torno de 1 GPa, tanto no sistema sem dopagem como no sistema dopado. Outra mudança estrutural observada, em ambos os sistemas, ocorre em torno de 10 GPa. A análise das propriedades eletrônicas foi realizada através da estrutura de bandas e foi observado que os dois sistemas considerados permanecem semicondutores, mas com redução no gap de energia. A análise da população de Mülliken no caso do sistema dopado mostra que os nanotubos doam cargas para a molécula H2SO4 e a quantidade de carga doada pelo tubo aumenta conforme a pressão aplicada aumenta.

Au cours de cette thèse on étude deux des plus populaires systèmes de nano-échelle, nano fil et points quantiques (quantum dots), dans le cadre d'une approximation basé sur des premiers principes. Afin d'atteindre cet objectif, nous avons utilisé et développé des théories plus sophistiquées qui nous ont permis d'avoir un meilleur aperçu de la façon dont les systèmes se comportent. Un aspect commun qui limite ces deux types de systèmes (nano fil et points quantiques) est la souplesse de contrôler les propriétés électroniques et optiques. Cette accordabilité des propriétés électroniques et optiques les dote d'un grand intérêt technologique, et elle est la raison de sa popularité / In this thesis we studied two of the most popular nano-scale systems, nano-wires and quantum dots, via a first-principles approach. In order to achieve this objective we have used and developed state-of-the-art theories that allowed us to have a greater insight into the the way this systems behave. One common aspect that bounds this two class of systems (nano-wires and quantum dots) is the flexibility to control their electronic and optical properties. This tunability of their electronic and optical properties, endows them of great technological interest, and is the reason behind their popularity

Cette dissertation rend compte de la théorie des premiers principes de la connaissance de Thomas Reid (1710-1796), plus particulièrement, de la théorie des premiers principes de la philosophie de l'esprit, de la morale et de la politique. Dans le premier chapitre, je discute des engagements fondationnalistes de Reid dans la philosophie de l'esprit, de la morale et de la politique. Je soutiens qu'il est clairement un fondationnaliste en ce qui concerne la connaissance spéculative et morale, mais qu’il n'est pas clair qu’il conserve les engagements fondationnalistes en matière de savoir politique - les premiers principes de la politique ne sont pas des croyances évidentes en soi : ils ne sont pas justifiés depuis le début de la recherche. Par conséquent, ils n'ont pas ce qu'il faut pour être une croyance fondamentale dans une vision fondationnaliste de la structure de la connaissance. Dans le deuxième chapitre, je discute la compréhension de Reid des sources de la connaissance, à savoir, le sens commun et la connaissance de l'humanité. Je soutiens que si la philosophie de l'esprit et de la morale repose sur les premiers principes du sens commun (croyances immédiates et irrésistibles dues à la constitution originelle de l'esprit), la politique repose sur les premiers principes de la connaissance de l'humanité (croyances dues à un mélange de la sagacité et de l'expérience du philosophe politique qui vit parmi les êtres humains dans une société politique). Dans le troisième chapitre, j'essaie d'expliquer la compréhension de Reid des premiers principes de la philosophie de l'esprit, de la morale et de la politique. Je m’efforce de répondre à ces questions : Qu'est-ce qu'un principe premier de la connaissance ? Comment expliquer la distinction entre les principes des vérités contingentes et les principes des vérités nécessaires ? Quelles sont les moyens que nous avons pour identifier les premiers principes de la connaissance ? Le quatrième et dernier chapitre est entièrement consacré à la discussion du sens commun. Plus particulièrement, je discute la manière dont Reid défend les premiers principes du sens commun contre l'attaque sceptique. / This thesis aims to discuss Thomas Reid’s (1710-1796) theory of the first principles of knowledge, more particularly, the first principles of philosophy of mind, morals and politics. In the first chapter, I discuss Reid’s foundationalist commitments in philosophy of mind, morals and politics. I argue that he is clearly a foundationalist about speculative and moral knowledge, but it is not clear if he keeps foundationalist commitments with regard to political knowledge – the first principles of politics are not self-evident beliefs: they are not justified from the start and, therefore, they do not have what is needed for being basic beliefs in a foundationalist view of the structure of knowledge. In the second chapter, I discuss Reid’s understanding of the sources of speculative, moral and political knowledge, namely, common sense and knowledge of mankind. I argue that while philosophy of mind and morals are based upon the first principles of common sense – immediate and irresistible beliefs due to the original constitution of mind, politics is based upon first principles of the knowledge of mankind – beliefs that are due to a mixture of the sagacity and the experience of the political scientist who lives among other human beings in a political society. In the third chapter, I try to explain Reid’s comprehension on the first principles of philosophy of mind, morals and politics. I try to explain what a first principle of knowledge is, how to understand the distinction between the principles of contingent and necessary truths and what the means we have to identify the first principles of knowledge are. The fourth and last chapter is entirely dedicated to common sense. More particularly, I discuss how Reid defends the first principles of common sense from the skeptical attack.

Abstract In this thesis, the theory of static magnetic resonance spectral parameters of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy is investigated in terms of the molecular Breit-Pauli Hamiltonian, which is obtained from the relativistic Dirac equation via the Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation. A leading-order perturbational relativistic theory of NMR nuclear shielding and spin-spin coupling tensors, and ESR electronic g-tensor, is presented. In addition, the possibility of external magnetic-field dependency of NMR parameters is discussed. Various first-principles methods of electronic structure theory and the role of one-electron basis sets and their performance in magnetic resonance properties in terms of their completeness profiles are discussed. The presented leading-order perturbational relativistic theories of NMR nuclear shielding tensors and ESR electronic g-tensors, as well as the theory of the magnetic-field dependent NMR shielding and quadrupole coupling are evaluated using first-principles wave function and density-functional theories.

Over the past few years, the size of semiconductor devices has been shrinking whereas the density of transistors has exponentially increased. Thus, thermal management has become a serious concern as device performance and reliability is greatly affected by heat. An understanding of thermal transport properties at device level along with predictive modelling can lead us to design of new systems and materials tailored according to the thermal conductivity. In our work we first review different models used to calculate thermal conductivity and examine their accuracy using the experimentally measured thermal conductivity for Si. Our results suggest that empirically calculated rates used in thermal conductivity calculations do not capture the scaling behavior for three phonon scattering mechanism properly. This directly affects the estimation of the thermal conductivity and therefore we need to capture them more accurately. Also, we observe that at low temperature the Callaway and the improved Callaway model show good agreement where boundary scattering is dominant, whereas at high temperature iterative and RTA models show good agreement where three-phonon scattering is dominant. Therefore, their lies a need for a model which can characterize K properly at low and high temperature. Second, we then calculate the three phonon scattering rates using first-principles and combine them into the Callaway model. Through our work we successfully build a hybrid model which can be used to describe thermal conductivity of Si for a temperature range of 10K to 425K which captures the thermal conductivity accurately. We also show that in case of Si the improved Callaway model and Callaway model both perform equally well.

Afin de pouvoir utiliser les nouveaux matériaux semi-conducteurs dans les domaines de l’électronique et de l’optique, il faut parvenir à comprendre leur «structure électronique», ou plus précisément le positionnement des niveaux d’énergie des électrons impliqués dans l’absorption / émission d’un photon. Les propriétés électroniques, sensibles à la composition chimique et à la structure du matériau, sont théoriquement accessibles en résolvant les équations de la mécanique quantique sur ordinateur. Ce travail porte sur des simulations théoriques de la structure électronique de semi-conducteurs binaires constitués d'indium (ou du gallium) et de sélénium, ainsi que de leurs "dérivés" à base de cuivre. La stabilité relative des phases cristallographiques de certains composés In-Se et Ga-Se a été évaluée, ce qui a permis d’expliquer certaines tendances connues et de formuler des prédictions. Les résultats obtenus seront particulièrement utiles dans le domaine du photovoltaïque. Les simulations numériques ont été réalisées dans le cadre de la théorie de la fonctionnelle de la densité (DFT), visant les structures cristallines d'équilibre et les propriétés électroniques de quelques semi-conducteurs binaires ou (pseudo)ternaires à base de Cu, In, Ga et Se. Les systèmes étudiés possèdent la même structure à courte portée (environnement tétraédrique des cations et anions) mais diffèrent à longue portée. Les composés binaires (Ga/In)Se, (Ga/In)2Se3 constituent des références importantes dans les diagrammes de phases des systèmes à base de (Cu, In, Se) et (Cu, Ga, Se), au sein desquels figurent les phases potentiellement utiles dans le domaine du photovoltaïque. Le travail comprend deux chapitres d'introduction et trois chapitres exposant des résultats nouveaux / In order to optimally use new semiconductor materials in electronics or optics, one needs to understand their “electronic structure”, that is, the mutual placement of the electron energy levels concerned by the processes of absorption / emission of a photon. The electronic properties, which depend on the material’s chemical composition and crystal structure, may be assessed by theory via solving quantum-mechanical equations on a computer. The present work deals with theory simulations of electronic structure done for several binary semiconductors consisting of indium (or gallium) and selenium, moreover for their “derivatives” containing copper. As a result, the relative stability of crystallographic phases of some Ga-Se and In-Se compounds has been assessed, explaining the known trends and making predictions. The results are expected to be useful for current works in photovoltaics. The numerical simulations have been performed within the density functional theory (DFT), aimed at the equilibrium crystal structures and electronic characteristics of several binary or (pseudo)ternary semiconductors based on Cu, In, Ga and Se. The compounds under study share similar short-range order features (tetrahedral environment of both cations and anions), differently assembled on a long-range scale. The binary compounds (Ga/In)Se, (Ga/In)2Se3 mark important end points at the phase diagrams of the (Cu,In,Se) and (Cu,Ga,Se) systems that cover a number of phases relevant, e.g., for applications in photovoltaics. The work comprises two chapters of introduction and three outlining novel results

Die zuverlässige Berechnung der elektrischen Leitfähigkeit vieler Materialien aus ersten Prinzipien erfordert die Berücksichtigung der anharmonischen Gitterdynamik. Der ab initio Kubo-Greenwood (KG)-Ansatz, der die KG-Leitfähigkeitsformel und die ab initio-Molekulardynamik kombiniert, scheint vielversprechend zu sein, da er die Anharmonizität des Gitters auf natürliche Weise berücksichtigt. Seine Anwendung auf kristalline Materialien hat jedoch bisher nur wenig Beachtung gefunden. Diese Arbeit beschreibt den KG-Ansatz und stellt eine numerische Implementierung dieses Ansatzes für den harmonischen Kristall Si und den anharmonischen Kristall SnSe vor. Die Fallstudie für Si zeigt erhebliche numerische Schwierigkeiten bei den KG-Berechnungen auf. Insbesondere behindert die erforderliche dichte k-Punkt-Abtastung die Konvergenz in Superzellengröße und macht die Berechnungen nur innerhalb der (semi-)lokalen Dichtefunktionaltheorie (DFT) durchführbar. Außerdem führt die notwendige Einführung eines Verbreiterungsparameters (η) zu einer erheblichen Unsicherheit bei der Bestimmung der Leitfähigkeit. Um diese Probleme zu lösen, werden rechnerisch effiziente Strategien diskutiert, darunter: (i) der "Scherenoperator"-Ansatz zur Korrektur des DFT-Bandlückenproblems; (ii) das "Optimal-η-Schema" zur Wahl eines geeigneten Wertes von η; und (iii) die Finite-Size-Scaling-Methode zur Ableitung der Leitfähigkeit in der thermodynamischen Grenze. Es wird festgestellt, dass die KG-Berechnungen mit diesen Strategien Leitfähigkeiten in angemessener Übereinstimmung mit den Experimenten ergeben. Der Vergleich mit früheren ab initio Boltzmann-Transportberechnungen zeigt jedoch, dass das η-Problem und die Frage der Konvergenz in Superzellengröße weiter verbesserte Konzepte erfordern. Die Fallstudie für SnSe zeigt sehr ähnliche numerische Schwierigkeiten wie im Fall von Si. Es werden Einblicke in die Auswirkung der Anharmonizität auf die Konvergenz der Superzellengröße gegeben. / Reliable first-principles calculation of the electrical conductivity in many materials requires accounting for the anharmonic lattice dynamics. The ab initio Kubo-Greenwood (KG) approach, which combines the KG conductivity formula and ab initio molecular dynamics, appears to be promising because it naturally includes lattice anharmonicity. However, its application to crystalline materials has so far received very little attention. This thesis describes the KG approach and presents a numerical implementation of this approach for the harmonic crystal Si and the anharmonic crystal SnSe. The case study for Si identifies considerable numerical difficulties in the KG calculations. In particular, the dense k-point sampling required hinders supercell-size convergence and makes the calculations only feasible within (semi)local density-functional theory (DFT). Besides, the necessary introduction of a broadening parameter (η) introduces a significant uncertainty in determining the conductivity. To address these issues, computationally efficient strategies are discussed, including: (i) the "scissor operator" approach to correct the DFT band-gap problem; (ii) the "optimal-η scheme" to choose an appropriate value of η; and (iii) the finite-size scaling method to deduce the conductivity in the thermodynamic limit. It is found that with these strategies, the KG calculations yield conductivities in reasonable agreement with experiment. Yet, comparison with previous ab initio Boltzmann transport calculations shows that the η problem and the issue of supercell-size convergence still require improved concepts. The case study for SnSe shows very similar numerical difficulties as in the case of Si. Insights into the effect of anharmonicity on the supercell-size convergence are provided.

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