Materials Theory

First principles calculations show that H overlayers induce a honeycomb vacancy reconstruction on Al(111). Above one ML H coverage, Al(111) facets into surfaces vicinal to (111), with {100} faceted single and double steps and vacancies on the {111} terraces. These H induced reconstructions are stable because H binds more strongly to {100} than to {111} facets. Faceting of Al(111) explains step bunching in H-mediated epitaxy of Al(111). H-covered Al(100) is stable against faceting.

Prediction criteria for surface reconstructions are discussed, with reference to ab initio calculations of the (110)- 1×2 missing-row and (100)- 5×1 quasi-hexagonal reconstructions of Ir and Rh.

By combining the Self-Interaction Correction (SIC) with pseudopotential perturbation theory, the role of self-interaction errors inherent to the Local Density Approximation (LDA) to Density Functional Theory is estimated in the determination of ground state and low energy isomeric structures of small metallic clusters. Its application to neutral sodium clusters with 8 and 20 atoms shows that the SIC provides sizeable effects in Na_8, leading to a different ordering of the low lying isomeric states compared with ab-initio LDA predictions, whereas for Na_20, the SIC effects are less pronounced, such that a quantitative agreement is achieved between the present method and ab-initio LDA calculations.

We have calculated formation energies and position of the defect levels for all native defects and for a variety of donor and acceptor impurities employing first-principles total-energy calculations. An analysis of the numerical results gives direct insight into defect concentrations and impurity solubility with respect to growth parameters (temperature, chemical potentials) and into the mechanisms limiting the doping levels in GaN. We show how compensation and passivation by native defects or impurities, solubility issues, and incorporation of dopants on other sites influence the acceptor doping levels.

A new method of solution to the local spin density approximation to the electronic Schrödinger equation is presented. The method is based on an efficient, parallel, adaptive multigrid eigenvalue solver. It is shown that adaptivity is both necessary and sufficient to accurately solve the eigenvalue problem near the singularities at the atomic centers. While preliminary, these results suggest that direct real space methods may provide a much needed method for efficiently computing the forces in complex materials.

Six-dimensional quantum dynamical calculations of the scattering of H_2 from a Pd(100) surface using a potential energy surface derived from density-functional theory calculations are presented. Due to the corrugation and anisotropy of the PES strong off-specular and rotationally inelastic diffraction is found. The dependence of the diffraction intensitities on the incident kinetic energy is closely examined. In particular we focus on the quantum oscillations for normal and off-normal incidence.

Recent measurements of the scattering of He and Ne atoms at Rh(110) suggest that these two rare-gas atoms measure a qualitatively different surface corrugation: While Ne atom scattering seemingly reflects the electron-density undulation of the substrate surface, the scattering potential of He atoms appears to be anticorrugated. An understanding of this perplexing result is lacking. In this paper we present density functional theory calculations of the interaction potentials of He and Ne with Rh(110). We find that, and explain why, the nature of the interaction of the two probe particles is qualitatively different, which implies that the topographies of their scattering potentials are indeed anticorrugated.

We calculate the transverse effective charges of zincblende compound semiconductors using Harrison's tight-binding model to describe the electronic structure. Our results, which are essentially exact within the model, are found to be in much better agreement with experiment than previous perturbation-theory estimates. Efforts to improve the results by using more sophisticated variants of the tight-binding model were actually less successful. The results underline the importance of including quantities that are sensitive to the electronic wavefunctions, such as the effective charges, in the fitting of tight-binding models.

In applying the semiempirical intermediate neglect of differential overlap (INDO) method based on the Hartree-Fock formalism to a cubic perovskite-based ferroelectric material KNbO3, it was demonstrated that the accuracy of the method is sufficient for adequately describing the small energy differences related to the ferroelectric instability. The choice of INDO parameters has been done for a system containing Nb. Based on the parametrization proposed, the electronic structure, equilibrium ground state structure of the orthorhombic and rhombohedral phases, and Gamma-TO phonon frequencies in cubic and rhombohedral phases of KNbO3 were calculated and found to be in good agreement with the experimental data and with the first-principles calculations available.

We present pseudo-potential coefficients for the first two rows of the periodic table. The pseudo potential is of a novel analytic form, that gives optimal efficiency in numerical calculations using plane waves as basis set. At most 7 coefficients are necessary to specify its analytic form. It is separable and has optimal decay properties in both real and Fourier space. Because of this property, the application of the nonlocal part of the pseudo-potential to a wave-function can be done in an efficient way on a grid in real space. Real space integration is much faster for large systems than ordinary multiplication in Fourier space since it shows only quadratic scaling with respect to the size of the system. We systematically verify the high accuracy of these pseudo-potentials by extensive atomic and molecular test calculations.