First-principles study of the stability of graphene and adsorption of halogen atoms (F, Cl and Br) on hydrogen passivated graphene

Abstract

First-principles calculations based on Hartree–Fock (HF) and density functional theory (DFT) levels of approximation have been carried out in order to study the stability of graphene clusters as a function of number of carbon atoms (N). The variation of calculated binding energy per carbon atom with corresponding number of carbon atoms (N) in graphene cluster almost saturates after the cluster size consisting of 96 carbon atoms, with binding energy per carbon atom 8.24 eV/atom. Adsorption of halogen atoms, ( F , Cl and Br ), on hydrogen passivated graphene ( H -graphene) was also studied systematically through first-principles DFT calculations by taking five different H -graphene clusters. The calculations showed that the most stable adsorption site for halogen adatoms on H -graphene being T site with binding energy 2.41 eV ( F ), 1.48 eV ( Cl ) and 1.19 eV ( Br ) on the H -graphene cluster consisting 96 carbon atoms. Moreover, on increasing the size of H -graphene cluster, the binding energy of halogen adatoms found to be increasing. The distances of adatom from the nearest carbon atom of H -graphene sheet were 1.47 Å ( F ), 2.71 Å ( Cl ) and 3.01 Å ( Br ), however, the adatom heights from the H -graphene basal plane were 2.22 Å ( F ), 2.90 Å ( Cl ), and 3.19 Å ( Br ). The bonding of halogen adatoms on H -graphene were through the charge transfer; 0.30 | e | ( F ), 0.37 | e | ( Cl ) and 0.19 | e | ( Br ), from H -graphene to adatoms and includes the negligible local distortion in the underlying planner H -graphene. Charge redistribution upon adsorption induces significant dipole moments 2.16 D ( F ), 4.81 D ( Cl ) and 3.08 D ( Br ) on H -graphene. The calculated HOMO–LUMO energy gap of adatom- H -graphene and H -graphene does not differ significantly up to the cluster size N = 30, however, beyond N = 30 adsorption of halogen adatoms significantly opens the HOMO–LUMO energy gap on H -graphene and the opening of HOMO–LUMO energy gap also saturates from N = 96. Correlation of computed HOMO–LUMO energy gap and corresponding binding energy of adatom- H -graphene systems have been also studied.