Matildite Contact with Media: First-Principles Study of AgBiS2 Surfaces and Nanoparticle Morphology

Motivated by the interest in AgBiS2 material for solar light harvesting applications, a detailed bulk first-principles quantum mechanical study of its surface properties is presented. Density functional theory based calculations with the Perdew–Burke–Ernzerhof functional have been carried out for different surface orientations and terminations of the matildite polymorph. From the results, two particularly stable facets are predicted to dominate Wulff shaped AgBiS2 nanoparticles. These are the (001) type nonpolar surface and the (111) polar terminations where facets are exposed containing solely Ag or S atoms. The Wulff equilibrium shape is predicted to be a cube with only two edges capped. This particular shape explains a previously reported surface enrichment of Ag with respect to Bi of ∼1.5. The (001) surfaces display an ionic character similar to bulk AgBiS2, with a low work function of 4.31 eV, although the inspection of the density of states (DOS) reveals a bandgap increased by 0.3 eV compared to bulk. This surface effect could explain the bulk wavelength overestimation of the absorption coefficient decay, as previously determined. Last but not least, the DOS of the (111) polar termination reveals a metallic character, where Fermi level is located below that on the (001) surfaces. Possible implications of the different electronic structure of these surfaces in the reported photoactivity are discussed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Ab initio data-analytics study of carbon-dioxide activation on semiconductor oxide surfaces

The excessive emissions of carbon dioxide (CO$_2$) into the atmosphere threaten to shift the CO$_2$ cycle planet-wide and induce unpredictable climate changes. Using artificial intelligence (AI) trained on high-throughput first principles based data for a broad family of oxides, we develop a strategy for a rational design of catalytic materials for converting CO$_2$ to fuels and other useful chemicals. We demonstrate that an electron transfer to the $\pi^*$-antibonding orbital of the adsorbed molecule and the associated bending of the initially linear molecule, previously proposed as the indicator of activation, are insufficient to account for the good catalytic performance of experimentally characterized oxide surfaces. Instead, our AI model identifies the common feature of these surfaces in the binding of a molecular O atom to a surface cation, which results in a strong elongation and therefore weakening of one molecular C-O bond. This finding suggests using the C-O bond elongation as an indicator of CO$_2$ activation. Based on these findings, we propose a set of new promising oxide-based catalysts for CO$_2$ conversion, and a recipe to find more

Transition Metal Carbides as Novel Materials for CO2 Capture, Storage, and Activation

The capture and activation of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) is a prerequisite to its catalytic reforming or breakdown. Here we report, by means of density functional theory calculations including dispersive forces, that transition metal carbides (TMC; TM = Ti, Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta, Mo) are able to uptake and activate CO2 on their most-stable (001) surfaces with considerable adsorption strength. Estimations of adsorption and desorption rates predict a capture of CO2 at ambient temperature and even low partial pressures, suggesting TMCs as potential materials for CO2 abatemen

The contact of graphene with Ni(111) surface: description by modern dispersive forces approaches

Here we present a Density Functional Theory (DFT) study on the suitability of modern corrections for the inclusion of dispersion related terms (DFT-D) in treating the interaction of graphene and metal surfaces, exemplified by the graphene/Ni(111) system. The Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) exchange-correlation functional is used as basis, on top of which we tested the family of Grimme corrections (D2 and D3, including Becke-Jonson damping and Andersson approach) as well as different flavors of the approach by Tkatchenko and Scheffler (TS). Two experimentally observed chemisorbed states, top-fcc and bridge-top conformations, were examined, as well as one physisorbed situation, the hcp-fcc state. Geometric, energetic, and electronic properties were compared to sets of experimental data for our model system of graphene/Ni(111), but also for available data of bulk Ni, graphite, and free-standing graphene. Results show that two of the most recent approximations, the fully ab initio TS-MBD, and the semi-empirical Grimme D3 correction are best suited to describe graphene↔metal contacts, yet, comparing to earlier studies, the Rev-vdW-DF2 functional is also a good option, whereas optB86-vdW and optB88b-vdW functionals are fairly close to experimental values to be harmless used. The present results highlight how different approaches for the approximate treatment of dispersive forces yield different results, and so fine-tuning and testing of the envisioned approach for every specific system is advisable. The present survey clears the path for future accurate and affordable theoretical studies of nanotechnologic devices based on graphene-metal contacts

Controlling the spin of metal atoms adsorbed on oxide surfaces: Ni on regular and defective sites of the MgO(001) surface

We have analyzed the relative energy of nonmagnetic and magnetic low-lying electronic states of Ni atoms adsorbed on regular and defective sites of the MgO(001) surface. To this end cluster and periodic surface models are used within density functional theory. For Ni atoms adsorbed on oxygen vacancies at low coverage, the interaction energy between the metal and the support is much larger than on regular sites. Strong bonding results in a diamagnetic adsorbed species and the energy required to reach the high-spin state increases. Moreover, a correlation appears between the low-spin to high-spin energy difference and the interaction energy hypothesizing that it is possible to prepare the surface to tune the high-spin to low-spin energy difference. Magnetic properties of adsorbed thin films obtained upon increasing coverage are more difficult to interpret. This is because the metallic bond is readily formed and dominates over the effect of the atoms directly bound to the vacancy

When Langmuir is too simple: H-2 dissociation on Pd(111) at high coverage

Recent experiments of H2 adsorption on Pd(111) [T. Mitsui et al., Nature (London) 422, 705 (2003)] have questioned the classical Langmuir picture of second order adsorption kinetics at high surface coverage requiring pairs of empty sites for the dissociative chemisorption. Experiments find that at least three empty sites are needed. Through density functional theory, we find that H2 dissociation is favored on ensembles of sites that involve a Pd atom with no direct interaction with adsorbed hydrogen. Such active sites are formed by aggregation of at least 3 H-free sites revealing the complex structure of the "active sites.

A general procedure to evaluate many-body spin operator amplitudes from periodic calculations: application to cuprates

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Performance of a modified hybrid functional in the simultaneous description of stoichiometric and reduced TiO2 polymorphs

Conventional density functionals with either the local density approximation (LDA) or the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) form of the exchange-correlation potential fail to describe the electronic structure of a large number of metal oxides. Both the LDA and the GGA grossly underestimate the band gaps of these materials which severely affect the description of oxygen vacancy point defect states in reduced samples. To find a pragmatic approach to simultaneously and accurately describe the atomic and electronic structures of the most common TiO2 polymorphs, we explore the effect of the percentage of exact, non-local, Fock exchange on the electronic structure of stoichiometric rutile and anatase. From these results, a modified hybrid functional is proposed to properly describe the atomic structures, formation enthalpies and electronic structures of rutile and anatase and, at the same time, the results of reduced samples are also in good agreement with the available experimental results. The present approach can be safely used to accurately describe numerous TiO2 based materials containing defects or realistic nanoparticles for which the required large unit cells or system sizes hinder the use of GW related techniques

Single oxygen vacancies of (TiO2)35 as a prototype of reduced nanoparticle: implication for photocatalytic activity

Titanium dioxide (TiO2), as a semiconductor metal oxide, has been one of the most popular materials studied in the field of photocatalysis. In the present study, the properties of single oxygen vacancies of (TiO2)35, a prototype of an anatase nanoparticle, were investigated by DFT calculations. (TiO2)35 is the minimum sized model (∼2 nm) for a bipyramidal nanoparticle with anatase phase and eight {101} facets. All the available oxygen vacancies at various sites according to position, coordination number, and distance from the center atom were examined. The geometric, energetic and electronic properties of the reduced TiO2 clusters were analyzed by hybrid DFT functionals with different Hartree-Fock exchange ratios (0, 12.5 and 25%). It was found that the structure of pristine (TiO2)35 is somewhat different from the bulk lattice, with a relatively high surface to volume ratio. Moreover, the particular highly (three)-coordinated oxygen atom is energetically the most favorable for oxygen vacancy formation from the nanoparticle mainly due to its substantially high relaxation energy. TiO2 nanoparticles have low oxygen vacancy formation energy and narrow band gap because of their defect states, and can be utilized as an efficient photocatalyst material

Magnetic coupling constants in three electrons three centres problems from effective Hamiltonian theory and validation of broken symmetry based approaches

In the most general case of three electrons in three symmetry unrelated centres with localized magnetic moments, the low energy spectrum consists of one quartet ( ) and two doublet ( , ) pure spin states. The energy splitting between these spin states can be described with the well-known Heisenberg-Dirac-Van Vleck (HDVV) model spin Hamiltonian, and their corresponding energy expressions are expressed in terms of the three different two-body magnetic coupling constants , and . However, the values of all three magnetic coupling constants cannot be extracted using the calculated energy of the three spin adapted states, since only two linearly independent energy differences between pure spin states exist. This problem has been recently investigated (JCTC 2015, 11, 3650), resulting in an alternative proposal to the original Noodleman's broken symmetry mapping approach. In the present work, this proposal is validated by means of ab initio effective Hamiltonian theory, which allows a direct extraction of all three values from the one-to-one correspondence between the matrix elements of both effective and HDVV Hamiltonian. The effective Hamiltonian matrix representation has been constructed from configuration interaction wave functions for the three spin states obtained for two model systems showing a different degree of delocalization of the unpaired electrons. These encompass a trinuclear Cu(II) complex and a -conjugated purely organic triradica