6–10 Jul 2026
University of the Western Cape
Africa/Johannesburg timezone
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Atomistic insights into the temperature effects on the structural and dynamic properties of cobaltite (CoAsS): A molecular dynamics study

7 Jul 2026, 17:20
1h 20m
Great Hall (University of the Western Cape)

Great Hall

University of the Western Cape

Poster Presentation Track A - Physics of Condensed Matter and Materials Poster Session 1

Speaker

Segoarihle Ntobeng (University of Limpopo)

Description

Cobaltite (CoAsS) possesses a structure similar to that of pyrite, which facilitates the development of interatomic potentials for atomistic simulations based on previously derived pyrite models. This study employed the atomistic molecular dynamics simulation to investigate the effect of temperature on the structural and dynamic properties of bulk cobaltite. The developed model predicted a lattice parameter of 5.571 Å, which was in good agreement with the experimental value of 5.582 Å. In addition, the calculated elastic constants were also found to compare well with the reported theoretical data and satisfy the mechanical stability criteria for cubic system. This confirmed the robustness of the potential model in replicating the structural properties. The validated potential model was subsequently applied to examine temperature-dependent behaviour. Properties such as structural changes, configurational energy, radial distribution functions, and diffusion coefficients were analyzed over a range of temperatures. The melting point of cobaltite was estimated to lie between 900 K and 1100 K. These results demonstrated the strong predictive capability of the potential model for phase transition behaviour, highlighting the reliability of the interatomic potentials developed.

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Author

Segoarihle Ntobeng (University of Limpopo)

Co-authors

Peace Mkhonto (University of Limpopo) Phuti Ngoepe (University of Limpopo) Mofuti Mehlape (University of Limpopo)

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