Counterintuitive Reconstruction of the Polar O-Terminated ZnO Surface With Zinc Vacancies and Hydrogen

TL;DR

This study reveals that subsurface zinc vacancies stabilized by hydrogen adsorption and doping can form stable, ordered surface reconstructions on ZnO(0001)-O surfaces, challenging conventional expectations about surface dipoles.

Contribution

It demonstrates through DFT that Zn vacancies can be stabilized and ordered on ZnO surfaces via hydrogen adsorption and doping, providing new insights into surface reconstruction mechanisms.

Findings

Zn vacancies are stabilized by H adsorption.

Ordered Zn(3x3) surface reconstruction is energetically favorable.

Sb-doping promotes large domain formation of Zn vacancies.

Abstract

Understanding the structure of ZnO surface reconstructions and their resultant properties is crucial to the rational design of ZnO-containing devices ranging from optoelectronics to catalysts. Here, we are motivated by recent experimental work which showed a new surface reconstruction containing Zn vacancies ordered in a Zn(3x3) pattern in the subsurface of (0001)-O terminated ZnO. A reconstruction with Zn vacancies on (0001)-O is surprising and counterintuitive because Zn vacancies enhance the surface dipole rather than reduce it. In this work, we show using Density Functional Theory (DFT) that subsurface Zn vacancies can form on (0001)-O when coupled with adsorption of surface H and are in fact stable under a wide range of common conditions. We also show these vacancies have a significant ordering tendency and that Sb-doping created subsurface inversion domain boundaries (IDBs) enhances the driving force of Zn vacancy alignment into large domains of the Zn(3x3) reconstruction.