Structural, electronic and magnetic properties of greigite Fe3S4by GGA and GGA+Uversus SCAN meta-GGA density functionals.

The performance of exchange-correlation functional of density functional theory represented in generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and in the strongly constrained and appropriately normed (SCAN) meta-GGA scheme to study structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of greigite (Fe3S4) was investigated. The effects of inclusion of strong electron correlations represented by on-site Hubbard correctionU, and nonlocality of the long-range van der Waals (vdW) interactions were also considered. Geometry optimization yielded the inverse spinel structure and lattice parameter of greigite in good agreement with experimental data. Calculated electronic structure revealed a half-metallic nature of the greigite bands for the applied functionals except for GGA, which predicts metallic behavior. Antiferromagnetic coupling of iron ions in tetrahedral and octahedral coordinations makes the overall crystal structure ferrimagnetic. In general the GGA+Uand SCAN show comparable performance in prediction physical properties of greigite. Inclusion of the vdW correction does not change the character of the bands.

Structure and energetics of FeO/Fe(001) interfaces.

We report results of density functional theory calculations of structure and properties of 1-5 monolayer thin FeO(001) films and their interactions with the Fe(001) surface. It is found that deposition of an iron-oxide film affects weakly geometry of the Fe(001) support, causing small<2% expansion of the first interplanar distance compared to clean iron surface. Analysis of the electronic structure of the FeO/Fe system shows that after interface formation, the oxide layer remains semiconducting and the substrate metallic. Electronic structure of the FeO(001) layer in direct contact with the Fe(001) surface exhibits metallic character. Magnetism of the metal/semiconductor interface is only slightly disturbed compared to that of isolated components. The FeO adlayers preserve antiferromagnetic (AFM) nature of the oxide and the sharp boundary between higher AFM phase of FeO and lower ferromagnetic phase of Fe is observed at the interface.

Gold nanostructures on iron oxide surfaces and their interaction with CO.

We review results of density functional theory calculations of the adsorption of single gold atoms and formation of sub-nanometer Au n structures (n = 2 to 5) on most stable iron oxide surfaces: hematite (0001), and magnetite (111) and (001). Structural, energetic, and electronic properties of Au n structures on both Fe- and O-rich oxide terminations are discussed. Different chemical character of the two oxide terminations is reflected in distinctly stronger binding of gold at the oxygen- than at the iron-terminated surface, and in different changes of the adsorption binding energy with the size of the Au n cluster. On the iron-terminated oxide surface the binding energy increases whereas on the oxygen-rich termination it decreases with the number of Au atoms in the structure. Upon CO adsorption on magnetite surface all Au n structures have a net positive charge and CO binds to the most cationic Au atom of a cluster. Interactions of Au n and CO with magnetite (111) show many similarities with those on hematite (0001) surface. The influence of the substrate relaxation effects on adsorption energy is also discussed.

On the Structure of Ultrathin FeO Films on Ag(111).

Ultrathin transition metal oxide films exhibit unique physical and chemical properties not observed for the corresponding bulk oxides. These properties, originating mainly from the limited thickness and the interaction with the support, make those films similar to other supported 2D materials with bulk counterparts, such as transition metal dichalcogenides. Ultrathin iron oxide (FeO) films, for example, were shown to exhibit unique electronic, catalytic and magnetic properties that depend on the type of the used support. Ag(111) has always been considered a promising substrate for FeO growth, as it has the same surface symmetry, only ~5% lattice mismatch, is considered to be weakly-interacting and relatively resistant to oxidation. The reports on the growth and structure of ultrathin FeO films on Ag(111) are scarce and often contradictory to each other. We attempted to shed more light on this system by growing the films using different preparation procedures and studying their structure using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), low energy electron diffraction (LEED) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). We observed the formation of a previously unreported Moiré superstructure with 45 Å periodicity, as well as other reconstructed and reconstruction-free surface species. The experimental results obtained by us and other groups indicate that the structure of FeO films on this particular support critically depends on the films' preparation conditions. We also performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations on the structure and properties of a conceptual reconstruction-free FeO film on Ag(111). The results indicate that such a film, if successfully grown, should exhibit tunable thickness-dependent properties, being substrate-influenced in the monolayer regime and free-standing-FeO-like when in the bilayer form.

Adsorption of water and ethanol on noble and transition-metal substrates: a density functional investigation within van der Waals corrections.

We report the results of extensive computational investigation of the adsorption properties of water and ethanol on several Cu-, Pt-, and Au-based substrates, including the close-packed unreconstructed Cu(111), Pt(111), and Au(111) surfaces, defected metal substrates with on-surface low-coordinated sites generated by the intermixing of Pt-Cu and Pt-Au in the topmost surface layers and strained on-surface and sub-surface Pt-layers at Cu(111) and Au(111) substrates. The calculations are based on the density functional theory (DFT) within the van der Waals (vdW) correction. For all the substrates, we found that water and ethanol bind via the anionic O atom to the cationic one-fold coordinated on-top metal sites, which enhances the adsorbate-substrate Coulomb interactions. For water, both DFT and DFT + vdW calculations predict a flat geometry. For ethanol, the DFT and DFT + vdW results are in contrast, namely, DFT yields a perpendicular orientation of the C-C bond with respect to the surface, while we obtained a parallel orientation of the C-C bond using DFT + vdW, which maximizes the adsorption energies. Despite expected deviations due to the nature of the weak adsorbate-substrate interactions, we found that the adsorption energy of water and ethanol shows a linear dependence as a function of the position of the center of gravity of the occupied d-band, and hence, the magnitude of the adsorption energy increases as the d-band center position shifts towards the Fermi energy. Thus, it indicates hybridization between the O p- and metal d-states, which determines the magnitude of the adsorption energy of water and ethanol on clean, low-coordinated, and strained noble and transition-metal substrates.

The role of the cationic Pt sites in the adsorption properties of water and ethanol on the Pt4/Pt(111) and Pt4/CeO2(111) substrates: A density functional theory investigation.

Finite site platinum particles, Ptn, supported on reduced or unreduced cerium oxide surfaces, i.e., CeO2-x(111) (0

Adsorption of gold subnano-structures on a magnetite(111) surface and their interaction with CO.

Gold deposited on iron oxide surfaces can catalyze the oxidation of carbon monoxide. The adsorption of gold subnano-structures on the Fe-rich termination of the magnetite(111) surface has been investigated using density functional theory. The structural, energetic, and electronic properties of gold/magnetite systems have been examined for vertical and flattened configurations of adsorbed Aun (n = 1-4) species. Single gold adatoms strongly bonded to the iron atoms of the Fe3O4(111) surface appear to be negatively charged, and consequently increase the work function. For a more stable class of larger, flattened Aun structures the adsorption binding energy per adatom is substantially increased. The structures exhibit a net positive charge, with the Au atoms binding with the oxide having distinctly cationic character. A charge transfer from the larger gold structures to the substrate is consistent with the lowering of the work function. The bonding of a CO molecule to a Au monomer on the Fe3O4(111) surface has been found nearly as strong as that to the iron site of the bare Fe-terminated surface. However, CO bonding to larger, oxide supported Aun structures is distinctly stronger than that to the bare oxide surface. Upon CO adsorption all Aun structures are cationic and CO shows a tendency to bind to the most cationic atom of the Aun cluster.

CO adsorption on small Aun (n = 1-4) structures supported on hematite. I. Adsorption on iron terminated α-Fe2O3 (0001) surface.

This is the first of two papers dealing with the adsorption of Au and formation of Aun nanostructures (n = 1-4) on hematite (0001) surface and adsorption of CO thereon. The stoichiometric Fe-terminated (0001) surface of hematite was investigated using density functional theory in the generalized gradient approximation of Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) form with Hubbard correction U, accounting for strong electron correlations (PBE+U). The structural, energetic, and electronic properties of the systems studied were examined for vertical and flattened configurations of Aun nanostructures adsorbed on the hematite surfaces. The flattened ones, which can be viewed as bilayer-like structures, were found energetically more favored than vertical ones. For both classes of structures the adsorption binding energy increases with the number of Au atoms in a structure. The adsorption of Aun induces charge rearrangement at the Aun/oxide contact which is reflected in work function changes. In most considered cases Aun adsorption increases the work function. A detailed analysis of the bonding electron charge is presented and the corresponding electron charge rearrangements at the contacts were quantified by a Bader charge analyses. The interaction of a CO molecule with the Aun nanostructures supported on α-Fe2O3 (0001) and the oxide support was studied. It is found that the CO adsorption binding to the hematite supported Aun structures is more than twice as strong as to the bare hematite surface. Analysis of the Bader charges on the atoms showed that in each case CO binds to the most positively charged (cationic) atom of the Aun structure. Changes in the electronic structure of the Aun species and of the oxide support, and their consequences for the interactions with CO, are discussed.

CO adsorption on small Aun (n = 1-4) structures supported on hematite. II. Adsorption on the O-rich termination of α-Fe2O3(0001) surface.

The adsorption of small Aun (n = 1-4) nanostructures on oxygen terminated α-Fe2O3(0001) surface was investigated using density functional theory in the generalized gradient approximation of Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) form with Hubbard correction U, accounting for strong electron correlations (PBE+U). The structural, energetic, and electronic properties were examined for two classes of the adsorbed Aun nanostructures with vertical and flattened configurations. Similarly to the Fe-terminated α-Fe2O3(0001) surface considered in Part I, the flattened configurations were found energetically more favored than vertical ones. The binding of Aun to the O-terminated surface is much stronger than to the Fe-termination. The adsorption bonding energy of Aun and the work function of the Aun/α-Fe2O3(0001) systems decrease with the increased number of Au atoms in a structure. All of the adsorbed Aun structures are positively charged. The bonding of CO molecules to the Aun structures is distinctly stronger than on the Fe-terminated surface; however, it is weaker than the binding to the bare O-terminated surface. The CO molecule binds to the Aun/α-Fe2O3(0001) system through a peripheral Au atom partly detached from the Aun structure. The results of this work indicate that the most energetically favored sites for adsorption of a CO molecule on the Aun/α-Fe2O3(0001) systems are atoms in the Au(0.5+) oxidation state.

The role of charge transfer in the oxidation state change of Ce atoms in the TM13-CeO2(111) systems (TM = Pd, Ag, Pt, Au): a DFT + U investigation.

Despite extensive studies of transition metal (TM) clusters supported on ceria (CeO2), fundamental issues such as the role of the TM atoms in the change in the oxidation state of Ce atoms are still not well understood. In this work, we report a theoretical investigation based on static and ab initio molecular dynamics density functional theory calculations of the interaction of 13-atom TM clusters (TM = Pd, Ag, Pt, Au) with the unreduced CeO2(111) surface represented by a large surface unit cell and employing Hubbard corrections for the strong on-site Coulomb correlation in the Ce f-electrons. We found that the TM13 clusters form pyramidal-like structures on CeO2(111) in the lowest energy configurations with the following stacking sequence, TM/TM4/TM8/CeO2(111), while TM13 adopts two-dimensional structures at high energy structures. TM13 induces a change in the oxidation state of few Ce atoms (3 of 16) located in the topmost Ce layer from Ce(IV) (itinerant Ce f-states) to Ce(III) (localized Ce f-states). There is a charge flow from the TM atoms to the CeO2(111) surface, which can be explained by the electronegativity difference between the TM (Pd, Ag, Pt, Au) and O atoms, however, the charge is not uniformly distributed on the topmost O layer due to the pressure induced by the TM13 clusters on the underlying O ions, which yields a decrease in the ionic charge of the O ions located below the cluster and an increase in the remaining O ions. Due to the charge flow mainly from the TM8-layer to the topmost O-layer, the charge cannot flow from the Ce(IV) atoms to the O atoms with the same magnitude as in the clean CeO2(111) surface. Consequently, the effective cationic charge decreases mainly for the Ce atoms that have a bond with the O atoms not located below the cluster, and hence, those Ce atoms change their oxidation state from IV to III. This increases the size of the Ce(III) compared with the Ce(IV) cations, which builds-in a strain within the topmost Ce layer, and hence, also affecting the location of the Ce(III) cations and the structure of the TM13 clusters.

Fe adsorption on hematite (α-Fe2O3) (0001) and magnetite (Fe3O4) (111) surfaces.

The structure and electronic properties of different terminations of hematite (0001) and magnetite (111) surfaces upon submonolayer Fe adsorption were studied using the spin-polarized density functional theory (DFT) including the Hubbard correction term U (DFT+U). On both oxides the Fe atoms were adsorbed on the most stable iron and oxygen terminated surfaces. The results show that Fe atoms bind strongly both to hematite and magnetite surfaces, however, the binding is distinctly stronger at the oxygen than at the iron terminated surfaces. For both oxides and surface terminations the binding energy of the Fe decreases with increasing coverage, which indicates substantial repulsive interactions between Fe adatoms. On the hematite surface, the most stable sites for Fe adsorption are bulk continuation sites which result in formation of the Fe-rich terminations. On the magnetite surface, the bulk continuation site is favored only for Fe adsorption on the oxygen terminated surface while on the iron terminated one Fe adsorbs in a position closer to the surface iron layer. Submonolayer coverages of Fe modify substantially the surface electronic structure of the oxides and, depending on the termination, can change its character from half-metallic to insulating one, and vice versa.

Structure and energetics changes during hydrogenation of 4H-SiC{0001} surfaces: a DFT study.

The changes in the atomic and electronic structure of Si- and C-terminated hexagonal SiC{0001} surfaces resulting from on-surface and subsurface hydrogen adsorption have been studied within the density functional theory framework. Hydrogen coverages ranging from a submonolayer to one monolayer were considered. Our results show that a monolayer of adsorbed H almost completely suppresses the relaxation of the SiC surface atomic layers. On both terminations H binds strongly to the surface and the binding is about 2 eV stronger in on-surface sites than subsurface. Hydrogen binding to the C-terminated surface varies very little with coverage and is distinctly stronger than to the Si-terminated surface.

The role of van der Waals interaction in the tilted binding of amine molecules to the Au(111) surface.

We present the results of ab initio electronic structure calculations for the adsorption characteristics of three amine molecules on Au(111), which show that the inclusion of van der Waals interactions between the isolated molecule and the surface leads in general to good agreement with experimental data on the binding energies. Each molecule, however, adsorbs with a small tilt angle (between -5 and 9°). For the specific case of 1,4-diaminobenzene (BDA) our calculations reproduce the larger tilt angle (close to 24°) measured by photoemission experiments, when intermolecular (van der Waals) interactions (for about 8% coverage) are included. These results point not only to the important contribution of van der Waals interactions to molecule-surface binding energy, but also that of intermolecular interactions, often considered secondary to that between the molecule and the surface, in determining the adsorption geometry and pattern formation.

Surface properties of clean and Au or Pd covered hematite (α-Fe(2)O(3)) (0001).

The structure and electronic properties of different terminations of the α-Fe(2)O(3)(0001) surface were studied with spin-polarized density functional theory (DFT) and the DFT + U method accounting for the effect of strong on-site Coulomb correlations. The results for lattice relaxation, electronic and magnetic properties are presented and discussed. Though the DFT and DFT + U methods provide qualitatively very similar surface geometries they differ very much in the prediction of the electronic and magnetic properties, and the surface energetics of the clean α-Fe(2)O(3)(0001). The most stable single iron terminated (0001) surface and the oxygen-rich termination were chosen to study Au and Pd atom adsorption. The results show that both Au and Pd bind strongly to hematite surfaces and induce large changes in their geometry. The DFT + U bonding is weaker by 0.3-0.6 eV than DFT on the iron terminated surface and about 2 eV stronger on the oxygen terminated one. The binding is stronger for Pd than Au and for both adsorbates is distinctly stronger at the oxygen than at the iron terminated surface. On the iron terminated surface the adsorption binding energy per adatom increases both with Au and Pd coverage, whereas for the oxygen terminated one the opposite trend is observed.

Density-functional study of oxygen adsorption on Mo(112).

Atomic oxygen adsorption on the Mo(112) surface has been investigated by means of first-principles total energy calculations. Among the variety of possible adsorption sites it was found that the bridge sites between two Mo atoms of the topmost row are favored for O adsorption at low and medium coverages. At about one monolayer coverage oxygen atoms prefer to adsorb in a quasithreefold hollow sites coordinated by two first-layer Mo atoms and one second layer atom. The stability of a structural model for an oxygen-induced p(2 x 3) reconstruction of the missing-row type is examined.