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Europium, one of the rare earth elements, exhibits +2 and +3 valence states and has been widely used for magnetic modification of materials. Based on density functional theory calculations, we predict the 2D EuBr/graphene heterojunctions to exhibit metallicity, huge intrinsic-ferromagnetism nearly 7.0 {\mu}B per Eu and the special monovalent Eu ions. Electron localization function (ELF), difference charge densities and Bader charge analyses demonstrate that there are cation-{\pi} interactions between the EuBr films and graphene, which explains the stability of these unusual heterojunctions. Graphene works as substrate to enable the stability of EuBr monolayer crystals where EuBr plays an important role to yield ferromagnetism and enhance metallicity in the heterojunctions. Monte Carlo simulations are used to estimate a Curie temperature of about 7 K, which, together with magnetic configurations, can be further modulated by external strains and charge-carrier doping. In general, our theoretical work predicts the properties of the novel 2D ferromagnetic EuBr/graphene heterojunctions, suggests the possibility of combining the 2D intrinsic-ferromagnetic metal halide crystals and graphene, and opens up a new perspective in next-generation electronic, spintronic devices and high-performance sensors., Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures

Oxidation catalysis on reducible oxide-supported small metal clusters often involves lattice oxygen. In the present work, we trace the path of lattice oxygen from Fe3O4(001) onto small Pt clusters during the CO oxidation, aiming at differentiating whether the reaction takes place at the cluster/support interface or on the cluster. While oxygen vacancies form on many other supports, magnetite maintains its surface stoichiometry upon reduction thanks to a high cation mobility. In order to investigate whether size-dependent oxygen affinities play a role, we study two specific cluster sizes, Pt5 and Pt19. By separating different reaction steps in our experiment, lattice oxygen can be accumulated on the clusters. Temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and sophisticated pulsed valve experiments indicate that the CO oxidation takes place on the Pt clusters rather than at the interface. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) shows a decrease in apparent height of the clusters, which density functional theory (DFT) explains as a restructuring following lattice oxygen reverse spillover.

The structural and electronic properties of bulk, monolayer and ultrathin films of V$_2$O$_5$ and MoO$_3$ layered oxides have been studied with first-principles density functional theory calculations including Van der Waals dispersion corrections. Specific DFT+U functionals have been tested in order to properly reproduce geometry, band-gap, static dielectric constant, and formational enthalpies of the two materials. The mono-, and multi-layers are cleaved along the <001> and <010> stable crystallographic orientations for V2O5 and MoO3, respectively. At least three layers are needed for both materials in order to recover bulk-like properties. Spin-orbit effects have been incorporated in our prediction, but they show marginal effects., Comment: Need further upgrade of results

Tungsten trioxide (WO$_3$) is a paradigmatic electrochromic material, whose peculiar optical properties in the presence of oxygen vacancies or intercalated alkali atoms have been observed and investigated for a long time. In this paper we propose a rationalization of experiments based on first-principles calculations of optical and electrical properties of oxygen deficient (reduced) WO$_3$. Our approach is based on a parameter-free dielectric-dependent hybrid density functional methodology, used in combination with the charge transition levels formalism, for studying excitation mechanisms in the presence of defects. Our results indicate that oxygen vacancies lead to a different physics in $\gamma$-monoclinic WO$_3$, depending on the orientation of the W-O-W chain where the vacancy is created, thus evidencing strong anisotropic effects rooted in the peculiar structural properties of the original nondefective monoclinic cell. Different types of oxygen vacancies can hence be classified on the basis of the calculated ground state properties, electronic structure, and excitation/emission energies, giving a satisfactory explanation to a range of experimental observations made on oxygen deficient WO$_3$., Comment: Accepted for publication in J. Phys. Chem. C

We investigate the behavior of oxygen vacancies in three different metal-oxide semiconductors (rutile and anatase TiO2, monoclinic WO3, and tetragonal ZrO2) using a recently proposed hybrid density-functional method in which the fraction of exact exchange is material-dependent but obtained ab initio in a self-consistent scheme. In particular, we calculate charge-transition levels relative to the oxygen-vacancy defect and compare computed optical and thermal excitation/emission energies with the available experimental results, shedding light on the underlying excitation mechanisms and related materials properties. We find that this novel approach is able to reproduce not only ground-state properties and band structures of perfect bulk oxide materials, but also provides results consistent with the optical and electrical behavior observed in the corresponding substoichiometric defective systems., Comment: Accepted for publication in J. Chem. Phys

We investigate the long-standing problem of the hole localization at the Al impurity in quartz SiO$_2$, using a relatively recent DFT hybrid-functional method in which the exchange fraction is obtained \emph{ab initio}, based on an analogy with the static many-body COHSEX approximation to the electron self-energy. As the amount of the admixed exact exchange in hybrid functionals has been shown to be determinant for properly capturing the hole localization, this problem constitutes a prototypical benchmark for the accuracy of the method, allowing one to assess to what extent self-interaction effects are avoided. We obtain good results in terms of description of the charge localization and structural distortion around the Al center, improving with respect to the more popular B3LYP hybrid-functional approach. We also discuss the accuracy of computed hyperfine parameters, by comparison with previous calculations based on other self-interaction-free methods, as well as experimental values. We discuss and rationalize the limitations of our approach in computing defect-related excitation energies in low-dielectric-constant insulators., Comment: Accepted for publication in J. Chem. Phys. (Communications)

We investigate band gaps, equilibrium structures, and phase stabilities of several bulk polymorphs of wide-gap oxide semiconductors ZnO, TiO2,ZrO2, and WO3. We are particularly concerned with assessing the performance of hybrid functionals built with the fraction of Hartree-Fock exact exchange obtained from the computed electronic dielectric constant of the material. We provide comparison with more standard density-functional theory and GW methods. We finally analyze the chemical reduction of TiO2 into Ti2O3, involving a change in oxide stoichiometry. We show that the dielectric-dependent hybrid functional is generally good at reproducing both ground-state (lattice constants, phase stability sequences, and reaction energies) and excited-state (photoemission gaps) properties within a single, fully ab initio framework., Comment: Minor changes in the final published version