Anisotropic thermal expansion in molecular solids: Theory and experiment on LiBH4
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Ames National Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), operated by and located on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.
For more than 70 years, the Ames National Laboratory has successfully partnered with Iowa State University, and is unique among the 17 DOE laboratories in that it is physically located on the campus of a major research university. Many of the scientists and administrators at the Laboratory also hold faculty positions at the University and the Laboratory has access to both undergraduate and graduate student talent.
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Abstract
We propose a reliable and efficient computational method for predicting elastic and thermal expansion properties in crystals, particularly complex anisotropic molecular solids, and we apply it to the room-temperature orthorhombic Pnmaphase of LiBH4. Using density-functional theory, we find thermal expansion coefficients at finite temperature, and we confirm them by temperature-dependent, in situ x-ray diffraction measurements. We also consider the effects of volume and pressure, as well as energy barriers for BH4− rotations and collective motions. Our combined study validates the theory and provides a better understanding of the structural behavior of LiBH4.
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This article is from Physical Review B 89 (2014): 134308, doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.89.134308. Posted with permission.