First-principles investigation of (001) surface of TiO2

By means of first-principles calculations based on the ab initio pseudopotential and plane wave basis, we present self-consistent molecular dynamic calculations to determine a clean TiO2 crystal (001) surface geometry and surface electronic states structure. All calculations were performed for both rutile and anatase phases. Using a total energy minimization strategy, we acquired the general inward relaxations. The s-like surface states just above the lower valence band at (001) surfaces both in the rutile and anatase phases are found. The band bending effect occurs both in rutile and anatase (001) surfaces. It reduces the band gap by ac. 0.4 eV in rutile and ac. 0.8 eV in anatase, elevating the Fermi energy levels. Besides the band bending of the valence band, surface states also lie near the bottom of the conduction band. The lower surface energy of anatase makes nanocrystalline TiO2 is often in the anatase phase below a critical size. Our results are in good agreement with the previous work and experimental data.