Electronic structure of Co-phthalocyanine calculated by GGA+U and hybrid functional methods

Abstract

Electronic structure calculations have been performed for the Co-phthalocyanine molecule using density functional theory (DFT) within the framework of Generalized Gradient Approximation (GGA). The electronic correlation in Co 3d orbitals is treated in terms of the GGA+U method in the framework of the Hubbard model. We find that for U = 6 eV, the calculated structural parameters as well as the spectral features are in good agreement with the experimental findings. From our calculation both the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) are dominated by the pyrrole carbon, with a HOMO–LUMO gap of about 1.4 eV. The GGA+U results obtained with U = 6 eV compare reasonably well with the calculations performed using Gaussian basis set and hybrid functionals in terms of ground state geometry, spin state and spectral features. The calculated valence band photoemission spectrum is in quite good agreement with the recently published experimental results.