density functional

摘要： It was recently reported in experiments that at temperatures below 2500 K liquid nitrogen (N) remains molecular up to 120 GPa [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 235701 (2017)], which contradicts a liquid-liquid transition at 88 GPa and 2000 K predicted by PBE-GGA density functional. To clarify this, we perform extensive ?rst principles molecular dynamics using SCAN meta-GGA density functional, which captures the intermediate-range part of the van der Waals interaction better than PBE-GGA. It is found that SCAN gives more accurate bond energy and length of an isolated N2 molecule than PBE. SCAN, as well as PBE, is capable of reproducing the ?rst-order molecular-to-polymeric phase transition, but in contrast to PBE, it predicts a wider stability range for ?uid N2. The boundary of this range is 15 GPa higher than the one predicted with PBE, which is in closer agreement with experiments. In addition, SCAN predicts a higher amount of threefold coordinated atoms in the polymeric phase than PBE, which is expected from experiments in amorphous N. These improvements indicate that SCAN is more accurate than PBE in predicting the phase transition from molecular to polymeric ?uid N.