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Zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) employing aqueous electrolytes have emerged as one of the most promising alternatives to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Nonetheless, the development of ZIBs is hindered by the scarcity of cathode materials with suitable electrochemical properties. In this work, we investigate the unique properties of zinc vanadate oxide (ZnV₂O₄, ZVO) and zinc vanadate sulfide (ZnV₂S₄, ZVS) compounds as cathode materials, focusing on their crystal structures, electrochemical performance, spectroscopic features and potential applications in ZIBs. Additionally, we investigate a new cathode material, zinc vanadate selenide (ZnV₂Se₄, ZVSe), constructed by replacing sulfur with selenium in the ZVS cubic structure. Our findings reveal that these compounds exhibit distinct electronic and electrochemical properties, although they have similar magnetic properties due to the fact that vanadium has the same oxidation state in all three compounds. On average, ZVS stands out as the most promising candidate for ZIBs cathodes, followed by ZVO. ZVSe, shows lower electrochemical performance and also has the obvious drawback of being more costly than the sulfur- and oxygen-based compounds. Our theoretical results align closely with available experimental data, both for electrochemical properties as well as x-ray and photoelectron spectroscopy, where a comparison can be made.

Despite extensive research on magnetic skyrmions and antiskyrmions, a significant challenge remains in crafting nontrivial high-order skyrmionic textures with varying, or even tailor-made, topologies. We address this challenge, by focusing on a construction pathway of skyrmionic metamaterials within a monolayer thin film and suggest several skyrmionic metamaterials that are surprisingly stable, i.e., long-lived, due to a self-stabilization mechanism. This makes these new textures promising for applications. Central to our approach is the concept of 'simulated controlled assembly', in short, a protocol inspired by 'click chemistry' that allows for positioning topological magnetic structures where one likes, and then allowing for energy minimization to elucidate the stability. Utilizing high-throughput atomistic-spin-dynamic simulations alongside state-of-the-art AI-driven tools, we have isolated skyrmions (topological charge Q = 1), antiskyrmions (Q = - 1), and skyrmionium (Q = 0). These entities serve as foundational 'skyrmionic building blocks' to form the here-reported intricate textures. In this work, two key contributions are introduced to the field of skyrmionic systems. First, we present a novel combination of atomistic spin dynamics simulations and controlled assembly protocols for the stabilization and investigation of new topological magnets. Second, using the aforementioned methods we report on the discovery of skyrmionic metamaterials.

Among the quasi-two-dimensional van der Waals magnetic systems, Fe4GeTe2 makes a profound impact due to its near-room-temperature ferromagnetic behavior and the complex magnetothermal phase diagram exhibiting multiple phase transformations, as observed from magnetization and magnetotransport measurements. A complete analysis of these phase transformations in light of electronic correlation and its impact on the underlying magnetic interactions remain unexplored in the existing literature. Using first-principles methodologies, incorporating the dynamical nature of electron correlation, we have analyzed the interplay of the direction of magnetization in an easy-plane and easy-axis manner with the underlying crystal symmetry, which reveals the opening of a pseudogap feature beyond the spin-reorientation transition temperature. The impact of dynamical correlation on the calculated magnetic circular dichroism and x-ray absorption spectrum of the L-edge of Fe atoms compare well with existing experimental observations. The calculated intersite Heisenberg exchange interactions display a complicated nature, depending upon the pairwise interactions among the two inequivalent Fe sites, indicating a Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida-like behavior of the magnetic interactions. We note the existence of significant anisotropic and antisymmetric exchange interactions, resulting in a chirality in the magnetic behavior of the system. Subsequent investigation of the dynamical aspects of magnetism in Fe4GeTe2 and the respective magnetothermal phase diagram reveals that the dynamical nature of spins and the decoupling of the magnetic properties for both sites of Fe is crucial to explain all the experimentally observed phase transformations.

Ultrafast magnetization dynamics driven by ultrashort pump lasers is typically explained by changes in the electronic populations and scattering pathways of excited conduction electrons. This conventional approach overlooks the fundamental role of quantum mechanical selection rules, governing transitions from the core states to the conduction band, that form the key method of the probing step in these experiments. By employing fully ab initio time-dependent density functional theory, we reveal that these selection rules profoundly influence the interpretation of ultrafast spin dynamics at specific probe energies. Our analysis for hcp Co and fcc Ni at the M edge demonstrates that the transient dynamics, as revealed in pump-probe experiments, arises from a complex interplay of optical excitations of the M shell. Taking into account the selection rules and conduction electron spin flips leads to highly energy-dependent dynamics. These findings address long-standing discrepancies in experimental transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements and show that only through meticulous consideration of the matrix elements at the probe stage, can one ensure that the magnetization dynamics is revealed in its true nature, instead of being muddled by artifacts arising from the choice of probe energy.

Understanding the electronic, lattice, and magnetic contributions to the magnetocaloric effect in magnetic materials can help to elucidate and optimize their performance. In this work, the structural and magnetocaloric properties of Al–Mn–Ni alloy are experimentally determined and theoretically analyzed based on ab initio calculations. The dominating B2 phase associated with the Mn-rich sublattice is found to be responsible for the observed magnetocaloric properties. The magnetic entropy change, refrigerant capacity, and adiabatic temperature change are evaluated. Through the analysis of the data, we find that for the B2 phase, changing from ferromagnetic to paramagnetic configurations results in a pronounced elastic hardening despite the volume expansion. The decrease in lattice entropy is significant and contributes negatively to the magnetic and electronic entropy changes. Our work emphasizes the critical role of the lattice sector in the magnetocaloric effect, and provides an in-depth understanding of the individual entropy terms in magnetic solid solutions.

The predictive accuracy of density functional theory (DFT) for alloy formation enthalpies is often limited by intrinsic energy resolution errors, particularly in ternary phase stability calculations. In this work, we present a machine learning (ML) approach to systematically correct these errors, improving the reliability of first-principles predictions. A neural network model has been trained to predict the discrepancy between DFT-calculated and experimentally measured enthalpies for binary and ternary alloys and compounds. The model utilizes a structured feature set comprising elemental concentrations, atomic numbers, and interaction terms to capture key chemical and structural effects. By applying supervised learning and rigorous data curation we ensure a robust and physically meaningful correction. The model is implemented as a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) regressor with three hidden layers, optimized through leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) and k-fold cross-validation to prevent overfitting. We illustrate the effectiveness of this method by applying it to the Al-Ni-Pd and Al-Ni-Ti systems, which are of interest for high-temperature applications in aerospace and protective coatings.

Magnetoelasticity plays a crucial role in numerous magnetic phenomena, including magnetocalorics, magnon excitation via acoustic waves, and ultrafast demagnetization, or the Einstein-de Haas effect. Despite a long-standing discussion on anisotropy-mediated magnetoelastic interactions of relativistic origin, the exchangemediated magnetoelastic parameters within an atomistic framework have only recently begun to be investigated. As a result, many of their behaviors and values for real materials remain poorly understood. Therefore, by using a proposed simple modification of the embedded cluster approach that reduces the computational complexity, we critically analyze the properties of exchange-mediated spin-lattice coupling parameters for elemental 3d ferromagnets (bcc Fe, fcc Ni, and fcc Co), comparing methods used for their extraction and relating their realistic values to symmetry considerations and orbitally decomposed contributions. Additionally, we investigate the effects of noncollinearity (spin temperature) and applied pressure on these parameters. For Fe, we find that singlesite rotations, associated with spin temperatures around 100 K, induce significant modifications, particularly in Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya-type couplings; in contrast, such interactions in Co and Ni remain almost configuration independent. Moreover, we demonstrate a notable change in the exchange-mediated magnetoelastic constants for Fe under isotropic contraction. Finally, the conversion between atomistic, quantum-mechanically derived parameters and the phenomenological magnetoelastic theory is discussed, which can be a useful tool towards larger and more realistic dynamics simulations involving coupled subsystems.

Magnetic vortices and skyrmions are typically characterized by distinct topological invariants. This paper presents a unified approach for the topological classification of these textures, encompassing isolated objects and configurations where skyrmions and vortices coexist. Using homotopy group analysis, we derive topological invariants that form the free Abelian group, Z x Z. We provide an explicit method for calculating the corresponding integer indices in continuous and discrete systems. This unified classification framework extends beyond magnetism and is applicable to physical systems in general.

Femtosecond laser pulses can be used to induce ultrafast changes of the magnetization in magnetic materials. Several microscopic mechanisms have been proposed to explain these observations, including the transport of ultrashort spin-polarized hot-electrons (SPHE). However, currently such ultrafast spin currents are only poorly characterized due to the measurement requirements for element and time resolution. Here, using time- and element-resolved X-ray magnetic circular dichroism alongside atomistic spin-dynamics simulations, we study the ultrafast transfer of the angular momentum from spin-polarized currents. We show that using a Co/Pt multilayer as a polarizer in a spin-valve structure, the SPHE drives the demagnetization of the two sub-lattices of the Fe₇₄Gd₂₆ film. This behaviour can be explained with two physical mechanisms; spin transfer torque and thermal fluctuations induced by the SPHE. We provide a quantitative description of the heat transfer of the ultrashort SPHE pulse to the Fe₇₄Gd₂₆ films, as well as the effect of spin-polarization of the SPHE current density responsible for the observed magnetization dynamics. Our work finally characterizes the spin-polarization of the SPHEs revealing unexpected opposite spin polarization to the Co magnetization.