Local structural disorder in crystalline materials

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zacharias, Marios, Even, Jacky
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zacharias, Marios
Even, Jacky
author_facet Zacharias, Marios
Even, Jacky
contents Local positional disorder in soft, anharmonic materials has emerged as a central factor in shaping their electronic, vibrational, optical, and transport properties. Viewed mainly as a source of performance degradation, recent theoretical insights reveal that local disorder profoundly influences the electronic structure and phonon dynamics, without inducing deep electronic traps or non-radiative recombination pathways. In this work, we highlight advances in modeling local disorder using polymorphous and anharmonic frameworks, showing how these methods explain experimental observations and predict new trends. We emphasize the role of disorder in the breakdown of the phonon quasiparticle picture and in modulating electron-phonon and phonon-phonon interactions, particularly in soft, anharmonic phases of matter, with significant effects on electrical and thermal transport. We outline opportunities for integrating these insights into predictive modeling for energy materials and propose combining advanced first-principles methods with machine learning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_04171
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Local structural disorder in crystalline materials
Zacharias, Marios
Even, Jacky
Materials Science
Local positional disorder in soft, anharmonic materials has emerged as a central factor in shaping their electronic, vibrational, optical, and transport properties. Viewed mainly as a source of performance degradation, recent theoretical insights reveal that local disorder profoundly influences the electronic structure and phonon dynamics, without inducing deep electronic traps or non-radiative recombination pathways. In this work, we highlight advances in modeling local disorder using polymorphous and anharmonic frameworks, showing how these methods explain experimental observations and predict new trends. We emphasize the role of disorder in the breakdown of the phonon quasiparticle picture and in modulating electron-phonon and phonon-phonon interactions, particularly in soft, anharmonic phases of matter, with significant effects on electrical and thermal transport. We outline opportunities for integrating these insights into predictive modeling for energy materials and propose combining advanced first-principles methods with machine learning.
title Local structural disorder in crystalline materials
topic Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04171