Elastic and vibrational properties of monoclinic HfO2 from first-principles study

The elastic and vibrational properties of crystalline monoclinic HfO2 have been investigated using density functional perturbation theory. Using the Voigt and Reuss theory, we estimate the bulk, shear and Young's modulus for polycrystalline HfO2, which agree very well with the available experimental and theoretical data. Additionally, we present a systematic analysis of the elastic properties of HfO2 polymorphs and find the trends in the elastic parameters for the HfO2 structures are consistent with those for the ZrO2 structures. The choice of exchange-correlation functional has an important effect on the results of elastic and vibrational properties. The utilization of Hartwigzen-Goedecker-Hutter type functional is a great improvement on calculation of the zone-centre phonon frequencies, and shows the root-mean-square absolute deviation of 7 cm(-1) with experiments. A rigorous assignment of all the Raman modes is achieved by combining symmetry analysis with the first-principles calculations, which helps us to identify the main peak and some other features of Raman spectra. Furthermore, the Raman spectrum of HfO2 powder has been simulated for the first time, providing a theoretical benchmark for the interpretation of the unresolved problems in experimental studies.