Effects of strain, d-band filling, and oxidation state on the surface electronic structure and reactivity of 3d perovskite surfaces

Trends in the dissociative oxygen adsorption energy and oxygen vacancy formation energy on cubic LaBO3 and SrBO3 perovskite (001) surfaces (where B = Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu) and their dependence on strain, d-band filling, and oxidation state were examined using density functional theory in the generalized gradient approximation. The effects of strain were found to be small compared to the effects of d-band filling and oxidations state. Electronic structure descriptors such as the d-band center of the B-atom were identified for trends in the dissociative oxygen adsorption energy and for the oxygen vacancy formation energy. A chemical correlation between these two reaction energies was also identified showing the trends in these reaction energies are not independent of each other. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4746117]