Electronic, elastic, thermodynamic properties and structure disorder of γ-AlON solid solution from ab initio calculations

Spinel aluminium oxynitride (γ-AlON), as a kind of transparent ceramic material expectable, is studied using the ab initio density functional method, in terms of electronic, elastic, thermodynamic properties and structure disorder. The results show that γ-AlON exhibits strong ionicity, as quantitatively expressed by (AlO2.43+)₁₅(AlT2.41+)₈(O ^1.64-)₂₇(N^2.27-)₅ from our reassessment of the ionic character. We summarize and speculate that the considered oxynitride single-crystals exhibit highly elastic anisotropy. The interpretation of the thermodynamic properties of γ-AlON according to quasi-harmonic Debye model confirm the available experiments and are extended to a wider temperature/pressure range. This material holds high elastic strength under extreme environments, where dB/dT absolute value is less than 0.03 GPa/K, independent of the pressure. Finally, we study the O/N structure disorder character of γ-AlON solid solution by investigating nine possible crystal structures. It is found that γ-AlON should be partially disordered, and in fact, the O/N ordering has a significant effect on the properties.