A fully-relativistic full-potential-linearized-augmented-plane-wave study of the (1 1 1) surface of δ-Pu

Abstract

Full-potential linearized-augmented-plane-wave calculations indicate that the antiferromagnetic state including spin–orbit coupling effect is the ground state of bulk δ-Pu with a lattice constant of 8.66 a.u. and a bulk modulus of 32.8 GPa. It is found that spin-polarization and spin–orbit coupling effects play competing roles in the localization to delocalization behavior of 5f electrons. The optimized lattice constants of δ-Pu bulk are used to calculate the electronic structure properties of δ-Pu(1 1 1) films up to seven layers at six theoretical levels, namely non-spin-polarized-no-spin–orbit-coupling (NSP-NSO), non-spin-polarized-spin–orbit-coupling (NSP-SO), spin-polarized-no-spin–orbit-coupling (SP-NSO), spin-polarized-spin–orbit-coupling (SP-SO), antiferromagnetic-no-spin–orbit-coupling (AFM-NSO), and antiferromagnetic-spin–orbit-coupling (AFM-SO). For the δ-Pu(1 1 1) films also, AFM-SO is found to be the ground state. For the films, surface energy rapidly converges and the semi-infinite surface energy is predicted to be 1.16 J/m 2. On the other hand, the magnetic moments show an oscillating behavior, gradually approaching the bulk value of zero with increase in the number of layers. It is also predicted that the work function of δ-Pu(1 1 1) films at the AFM-SO ground state is approximately 3.41 eV, and the work function shows some oscillations when the number of layers is less than five, while it becomes relatively stable when the number of layers is greater than five. This suggests that a 3-layer film might be sufficient for computations of, for example, adsorption energies while a 5-layer film may be necessary for precise computations of, for example, adsorbate-induced work function shifts. The calculated results are compared with other experimental and theoretical results in the literature and the agreements between them are excellent, given the complexity of the physical systems and different computational formalisms.