Electronic structure of α-Al2O3 slabs: A local environment study

In this work we performed an ab inino/Density Functional Theory (DFT) study of structural and electronic properties of the (0 0 1) alpha-Al2O3 surface. For this study we used two methods with different basis set: the Full-Potential Augmented Plane Wave plus local orbital (FP-APW+lo) and a linear combination of numerical localized atomic orbital basis sets, employing the WIEN2k code and the SIESTA code, respectively. In order to calculate the structural and electronic properties of the reconstructed surface, we calculated the final equilibrium atomic position with the SIESTA code and then the electric-field gradient (EFG) at Al sites was calculated with the FP-APW+lo code using the optimized positions. Using this procedure we found equilibrium structures with comparative lower energy than those obtained using only the FP-APW+lo method. The EFG tensor and the local structure for Al were studied as a function of the depth from the surface for the relaxed structures. We found that distances down to 6 angstrom from the surface are sufficient to converge the EFG and the Al-O distances to bulk values. The predicted bulk EFG at the Al site is in good agreement with available experimental values. These results can be used for local probes purposes, e.g., in the case of doping, with important sensitivity for probes located close to the top of the surface, in particular for distances smaller than 6 angstrom. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.