Nonequilibrium ab initio molecular dynamics determination of Ti monovacancy migration rates in B1 TiN

Abstract

We use the color diffusion (CD) algorithm in nonequilibrium (accelerated) ab initio molecular dynamics simulations to determine Ti monovacancy jump frequencies in NaCl-structure titanium nitride (TiN), at temperatures ranging from 2200 to 3000 K. Our results showthat theCDmethod extended beyond the linear-fitting rate-versus-force regime [Sangiovanni et al., Phys. Rev. B 93, 094305 (2016)] can efficiently determine metal vacancy migration rates in TiN, despite the low mobilities of lattice defects in this type of ceramic compound. We propose a computational method based on gamma-distribution statistics, which provides unambiguous definition of nonequilibrium and equilibrium (extrapolated) vacancy jump rates with corresponding statistical uncertainties. The acceleration-factor achieved in our implementation of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics increases dramatically for decreasing temperatures from 500 for T close to the melting point T-m, up to 33 000 for T approximate to 0.7 T-m ; Funding Agencies|Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) project SRL [10-0026]; Swedish Research Council (VR) [621-2011-4417, 2015-04391, 330-2014-6336]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area Grant in Materials Science on Advanced Functional Materials [MatLiU 2009-00971]; Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation [14.Y26.31.0005]; Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions [INCA 600398]; Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research; Stiftelsen Olle Engkvist Byggmastare