Adsorption and diffusion of oxygen atom on UN2(100) surface and subsurface: a density functional theory study (DFT and DFT + U)

In the present work, adsorption and dif fusion of oxygen (O) atom on uranium dinitride (UN2) is studied to map out the preferential UN2(100) surface site. The first principle method based on density functional theory (DFT) within the generalized gradient approximation PBE and the covariant version energy functional PBE + U correction were used. The supercell approach and a coverage dependence of the adsorption structures and energetic were studied in detail for several monolayers’ (ML) range. Potential energy surfaces (PES) corresponding to the interaction between O atom and UN2(100) on surface and subsurface for several sites and layers (Top U and Top N slabs) were calculated and favorable sites were identified with their maxima energy stable positions, which were then analyzed. For all positions, the PES show the same system behavior, when the O atom is sufficiently far from the UN2 surface, and the energy of the system tends to the sum of free UN2 slab and free oxygen atom energies. In return, when the distances decrease, strong interactions appear with presence of important potential wells. Calculation results showed that favored on-surface site for O atom adsorption were found to be near the bridge one for the UN (Top U slab) corresponding to five layers, uranium terminated and top one for (Top N slab) corresponding to six layers nitrogen terminated, the maximum system energy is situated at a position of about 1.2 and 1.5 Å from the surface for the two layers types calculations respectively. For subsurface results, only Top N presents a favorable incorporation site at the hollow position and the penetration of O atom is about −0.5 Å from the surface. DFT + U study confirms all the results obtained by DFT calculations; that is, the maxima site positions for oxygen atom and the adhesion energy values per atom are of the same order of magnitudes. The adsorption energy per oxygen atom and the mean distance from the top surface gradually decrease with the coverage of O atoms for both on-surface cases, Top U and Top N slabs, with oxygen occupying the favorable site. For the Top N slab hollow site, the incorporation of oxygen through the surface becomes effective from a coverage of 3/8 ML with an encrustation of about −0.3 Å. © 2014, The Author(s).