Molecular‐dynamics simulation of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 at high temperatures

Molecular-dynamics simulation of YBa2Cu3O7 is carried out to study the oxygen-atom distribution at high temperatures as the system undergoes the orthorhombic-to-tetragonal phase transition. While at the transition the one-dimensional arrangement of oxygen atoms in the Cul(0,0,0)-O4(0, 1/2, 0) chains begins to disorder, at temperatures above the transition the simulation also indicates the presence of a few vacancies at the O1(0, 0, z) sites. At still higher temperatures vacancies occur at all the oxygen sites. The simulation utilises an interatomic potential based on an unscreened rigid-ion model which was earlier found to be useful in understanding the structure, phonon density of states, and related properties. The thermal expansion, as obtained from the zero-pressure simulation, is in reasonable agreement with the observations of Jorgensen et al. on the oxygen-deficient system. The melting temperature obtained from the simulation is also in fair agreement with experiment.