Berlin 2015 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik
HL 91: Frontiers of electronic structure theory: Many-body effects, methods
HL 91.2: Talk
Thursday, March 19, 2015, 15:30–15:45, MA 004
Electronic Properties of Surfaces and Interfaces with Self-Consistent Interatomic van der Waals Density Functional — •Nicola Ferri1, Robert A. Distasio Jr.2, Alberto Ambrosetti1, Roberto Car2, Matthias Scheffler1, and Alexandre Tkatchenko1 — 1Fritz-Haber-Institut der MPG, Berlin, Germany — 2Princeton University, USA
Ubiquitous long-range van der Waals (vdW) interactions play a fundamental role in the structure and stability of a wide range of systems. Within the DFT framework, the vdW energy represents a crucial, but tiny part (0.001%) of the total energy, hence its influence on the electronic density, n(r), and derived electronic properties is typically assumed to be rather small. Here, we address this question via a fully self-consistent (SC) implementation of the interatomic Tkatchenko-Scheffler vdW functional [1] and its extension to surfaces [2]. For several transition metal surfaces, self-consistency increases their dipole moments and induces non-trivial electron density rearrangements. As a consequence, we observed changes of up to 0.3 eV in the surface workfunctions, with vdW self-consistency improving the agreement with experiments. Similar behavior is observed for molecules adsorbed on metals, where vdW contributions influence both Pauli push-back and charge transfer, the two phenomena that determine interface workfunctions. [1] A. Tkatchenko and M. Scheffler, PRL (2009). [2] V. G. Ruiz, W. Liu, E. Zojer, M. Scheffler, and A. Tkatchenko, PRL (2012).