Ab initio calculations of SrTiO3, BaTiO3, PbTiO3, CaTiO3, SrZrO3, PbZrO3 and BaZrO3 (001), (011) and (111) surfaces as well as F centers, polarons, KTN solid solutions and Nb impurities therein

In this paper, the review of recent results of calculations of surface relaxations, energetics, and bonding properties for ABO(3) perovskite (001), (011) and (111) surfaces using mostly a hybrid description of exchange and correlation is presented. Both AO and BO2-terminations of the nonpolar (001) surface and A, BO, and O terminations of the polar (011) surface, as well as B and AO(3)-terminations of the polar (111) surface were considered. On the AO-terminated (001) surface, all upper-layer A atoms relax inwards, while all second layer atoms relax outwards. For the BO2-terminated (001) surface, in most cases, the largest relaxations are on the second-layer metal atoms. For almost all ABO(3) perovskites, the surface rumpling is much larger for the AO-terminated than for the BO2-terminated (001) surface, but their surface energies are always quite similar. In contrast, different terminations of the (011) ABO(3) surface lead to very different surface energies for the O-terminated, A-terminated, and BO-terminated (011) surface, respectively. A considerable increase in the Ti-O or Zr-O, respectively, chemical bond covalency near the (011) surface as compared both to the bulk and to the (001) surface in ABO(3) perovskites were predicted. According to the results of ab initio calculations for Nb doped SrTiO3, Nb is a shallow donor; six nearest O ions are slightly displaced outwards from the Nb ion. The F center in ABO(3) perovskites resembles electron defects in the partially-covalent SiO2 crystal rather than usual F centers in ionic crystals like MgO and alkali halides. The results of calculations for several perovskite KNbxTa1-xO3 (KTN) solid solutions, as well as hole and electron polarons in ABO(3) perovskites are analyzed.