TY - CONF A1 - Miliūtė, Aistė T1 - Structural evolution of ZrV2O7: supercell persistence revealing local and global structure duality N2 - In the AM2O7 family of negative thermal expansion materials (NTE), evidence of supercell at room temperature was reported following the Völlenke et al. discovery of missed superlattice due to the apparent linearity of the M-O-M bond in GeP2O7. Korthuis et al. and Khosrovani et al. demonstrated it to be true for cubic ZrV2O7 as well. It was concluded that at room temperature, the structure consists of 27 'subcells' with bent M2O7 groups that appear to form a linear configuration due to refinement of averaged position. However, around 100 °C, the transition to the “parent” cell was reported, where the cell volume increases, and the M-O-M angles are constrained by the Pa-3 space group symmetry to be 180°. We followed structural changes in the ZrV2O7 at high temperatures to demonstrate partial disorder within the crystal, local and global structural duality and supercell persistence at high temperatures. Total scattering measurements and Pair Distribution Function (PDF) analysis revealed that the experimental pattern cannot be fitted with the “parent structure” model, and only the 3×3×3 supercell model can correspond to local and global structures throughout the full 25-700 °C temperature range. We also show how short and long-range order within the crystal changes when approaching the phase transition, which might indicate the existence of coherent structural domains that evolve between order and disorder with increasing temperature. We further hypothesize how this can be related to the negative thermal expansion mechanism and the interpretation of structure solutions presenting data from high-temperature X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) measurements. T2 - 5th International Symposium on Negative Thermal Expansion and Related Materials (ISNTE-5) CY - Porto, Portugal DA - 29.07.2025 KW - NTE KW - Ab initio KW - PDF KW - CSM PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-63874 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Miliūtė, Aistė T1 - Theoretical and experimental development of negative thermal expansion material ZrV2O7 N2 - Zirconium vanadate (ZrV2O7) is a well-known negative thermal expansion (NTE) material which stands out for its remarkable isotropic unit cell contraction over a broad temperature range (130°C < T < 800°C). This enables the fabrication of composites where the overall expansion coefficient can be tailored to a specific negative, positive, or neutral value. Consequently, such composite materials are attractive for many device applications because they can compensate for damage caused by thermal expansion. They are relevant to optical systems, electronic and biomedical applications. In this study, we implement ab-initio-based vibrational computations with partially treated anharmonicity (quasi-harmonic approximation (QHA), temperature-dependent effective harmonic potentials (TDEP)[5]) in combination with experimental methods to follow and rationalize the negative thermal expansion in this material, including the influence of the local structure disorder, microstructure, and defects. In analytical techniques that can provide structural information such as pair distribution function analysis (PDF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS), molecules and atoms are fit geometrically without consideration of atom interactions. Therefore, in combination with these methods, we also consider potential energy surfaces and conclude what structures are likely to form energetically in the full NTE temperature range, in addition to fitting experimental data geometrically. We also optimise experimentally fitted structures to their lowest energy configurations and re-generate comparative data to observe what differences would be visible experimentally. T2 - XLVIII International Congress of Theoretical Chemists of Latin Expression CY - Cartagena de Indias, Colombia DA - 13.07.2025 KW - NTE KW - Ab initio KW - QHA KW - TDEP KW - anharmonicity PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-63873 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Miliūtė, Aistė A1 - George, Janine A1 - Mieller, Björn A1 - Stawski, Tomasz T1 - ZrV2O7 negative thermal expansion (NTE) material N2 - Zirconium vanadate (ZrV2O7) is a well-known negative thermal expansion (NTE) material that exhibits significant isotropic contraction over a broad temperature range (~150°C < T < 800°C). Therefore, it can be used to create composites with controllable expansion coefficients and prevent thermal stress, fatigue, cracking, and deformation at interfaces. We implement interdisciplinary research to analyze such material. We study the influence of the synthesis methods and their parameters on the sample's purity, crystallinity, and homogeneity. Moreover, we implement ab initio-based vibrational computations with partially treated anharmonicity in combination with experimental methods to follow temperature-induced structural changes and rationalize the negative thermal expansion in this material, including the influence of the local structure disorder. T2 - SALSA Make and Measure Conference CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 13.09.2023 KW - NTE KW - Composites KW - TEM PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-58367 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -