A Density Functional Study of Atomic Hydrogen and Oxygen Chemisorption on the Relaxed (0001) Surface of Double Hexagonal Close Packed Americium

TL;DR

This study uses density functional theory to analyze how atomic hydrogen and oxygen chemisorb on americium's (0001) surface, revealing preferred adsorption sites, relativistic effects, and impacts on electronic properties.

Contribution

It provides a detailed first-principles comparison of chemisorption energies, sites, and electronic effects for H and O on americium, including relativistic considerations.

Findings

Bridge site is most stable for oxygen adsorption.

H and O chemisorption energies are slightly higher with spin-orbit coupling.

Chemisorption affects work function and magnetic moments.

Abstract

Ab initio total energy calculations within the framework of density functional theory have been performed for atomic hydrogen and oxygen chemisorption on the (0001) surface of double hexagonal packed americium using a full-potential all-electron linearized augmented plane wave plus local orbitals method. Chemisorption energies were optimized with respect to the distance of the adatom from the relaxed surface for three adsorption sites, namely top, bridge, and hollow hcp sites, the adlayer structure corresponding to coverage of a 0.25 monolayer in all cases. Chemisorption energies were computed at the scalar-relativistic level (no spin-orbit coupling NSOC) and at the fully relativistic level (with spin-orbit coupling SOC). The two-fold bridge adsorption site was found to be the most stable site for O at both the NSOC and SOC theoretical levels with chemisorption energies of 8.204 eV and 8.368 eV respectively, while the three-fold hollow hcp adsorption site was found to be the most stable site for H with chemisorption energies of 3.136 eV at the NSOC level and 3.217 eV at the SOC level. The respective distances of the H and O adatoms from the surface were found to be 1.196 Ang. and 1.164 Ang. Overall our calculations indicate that chemisorption energies in cases with SOC are slightly more stable than the cases with NSOC in the 0.049-0.238 eV range. The work functions and net magnetic moments respectively increased and decreased in all cases compared with the corresponding quantities of bare dhcp Am (0001) surface. The partial charges inside the muffin-tins, difference charge density distributions, and the local density of states have been used to analyze the Am-adatom bond interactions in detail. The implications of chemisorption on Am 5f electron localization-delocalization are also discussed.