arXiv subjects

Giovanni Onida

Publications and source records attributed to Giovanni Onida.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2008

Elementary structural building blocks encountered in silicon surface reconstructions

Driven by the reduction of dangling bonds and the minimization of surface stress, reconstruction of silicon surfaces leads to a striking diversity of outcomes. Despite this variety even very elaborate structures are generally comprised of a small number of structural building blocks. We here identify important elementary building blocks and discuss their integration into the structural models as well as their impact on the electronic structure of the surface.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2008

A new structural model for the Si(331)-(12x1) reconstruction

A new structural model for the Si(331)-(12x1) reconstruction is proposed. Based on scanning tunneling microscopy images of unprecedented resolution, low-energy electron diffraction data, and first-principles total-energy calculations, we demonstrate that the reconstructed Si(331) surface shares the same elementary building blocks as the Si(110)-(16x2) surface, establishing the pentamer as a universal building block for complex silicon surface reconstructions.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2007

Ab-initio self-energy corrections in systems with metallic screening

The calculation of self-energy corrections to the electron bands of a metal requires the evaluation of the intraband contribution to the polarizability in the small-q limit. When neglected, as in standard GW codes for semiconductors and insulators, a spurious gap opens at the Fermi energy. Systematic methods to include intraband contributions to the polarizability exist, but require a computationally intensive Fermi-surface integration. We propose a numerically cheap and stable method, based on a fit of the power expansion of the polarizability in the small-q region. We test it on the homogeneous electron gas and on real metals such as sodium and aluminum.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2007

Ab-initio calculation of the vibrational modes of SiH4, H2SiO, Si10H16, and Si10H14O

We have studied the normal modes of hydrogenated and oxidized silicon nanocrystals, namely SiH4 (silan), H2SiO (silanon), Si10H16 and Si10H14O. The small clusters (SiH4 and H2SiO) have been used for convergence tests and their bondlengths and frequencies have been compared with experimental and theoretical reference data. For the large clusters (Si10H16 and Si10H14O) we have investigated the vibrational density of states where we have identified the oxygen-related spectral features. The vibrational modes have been also analyzed with respect to the displacement patterns. The calculations have been carried out within the density-functional and density-functional perturbation theory using the local-density approximation.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2006

Dielectric function of the Si(113)3x2ADI surface from ab-initio methods

We have investigated the imaginary part of the dielectric function Im(epsilon) of the (113) 3x2 ADI reconstructed surface of silicon. The calculations have been performed for a periodic slab within the plane-wave pseudopotential approach to the density-functional theory. The three diagonal components of Im(epsilon) have been derived from the momentum matrix elements within the independent particle random phase approximation (IPRPA). In this article, the importance of the k-point convergence is figured out by inspecting k-point resolved spectra.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2006

Ab-initio calculations of the optical properties of the Si(113)3x2ADI surface

We investigated the stable silicon (113) surface with a 3x2ADI reconstruction by ab-initio methods. The ground state properties have been obtained using the density-functional theory. We present the dispersion of the electronic band structure, where the surface bands have been distinguished from the projected bulk bands by calculating their localization in the slab. The optical spectra, here the reflectance anisotropy (RAS), have been obtained within the independent particle random phase approximation. We identified surface features in the spectra tracing them back to the responsible electronic states and, studied their localization in the slab. A comparison with available experimental data for the band structure and the RAS shows a good agreement.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2004

Ab initio study of reflectance anisotropy spectra of a sub-monolayer oxidized Si(100) surface

The effects of oxygen adsorption on the reflectance anisotropy spectrum (RAS) of reconstructed Si(100):O surfaces at sub-monolayer coverage (first stages of oxidation) have been studied by an ab initio DFT-LDA scheme within a plane-wave, norm-conserving pseudopotential approach. Dangling bonds and the main features of the characteristic RAS of the clean Si(100) surface are mostly preserved after oxidation of 50% of the surface dimers, with some visible changes: a small red shift of the first peak, and the appearance of a distinct spectral structure at about 1.5 eV. The electronic transitions involved in the latter have been analyzed through state-by-state and layer-by-layer decompositions of the RAS. We suggest that new interplay between present theoretical results and reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy experiments could lead to further clarification of structural and kinetic details of the Si(100) oxidation process in the sub-monolayer range.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2002

Quasiparticle bandstructure effects on the {\it d} hole lifetimes of copper within the GW approximation

We investigate the lifetime of {\it d} holes in copper within a {\it first--principle} $GW$ approximation. At the $G_0W_0$ level the lifetime of the topmost {\it d} bands are in agreement with the experimental results and are four times smaller than those obtained in the ``on--shell'' calculations commonly used in literature. The theoretical lifetimes and bandstructure, however, worsen when further iterative steps of self-consistency are included in the calculation, pointing to a delicate interplay between self--consistency and the inclusion of vertex corrections. We show that the $G_0W_0$ success in the lifetimes calculation is due to the opening of new ``intraband'' decay channels that disappear at self--consistency.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2002

First--principles calculation of the plasmon resonance and of the reflectance spectrum of Silver in the GW approximation

We show that the position and width of the plasmon resonance in Silver are correctly predicted by ab--initio calculations including self--energy effects within the GW approximation. Unlike in simple metals and semiconductors, quasiparticle corrections play a key role and are essential to obtain Electron Energy Loss in quantitative agreement with the experimental data. The sharp reflectance minimum at 3.92 eV, that cannot be reproduced within DFT--LDA, is also well described within GW.The present results solve two unsettled drawbacks of linear response calculations for Silver.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2001

Quasiparticle Electronic structure of Copper in the GW approximation

We show that the results of photoemission and inverse photoemission experiments on bulk copper can be quantitatively described within band-structure theory, with no evidence of effects beyond the single-quasiparticle approximation. The well known discrepancies between the experimental bandstructure and the Kohn-Sham eigenvalues of Density Functional Theory are almost completely corrected by self-energy effects. Exchange-correlation contributions to the self-energy arising from 3s and 3p core levels are shown to be crucial.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2001

Excitonic effects in solids described by time-dependent density functional theory

Starting from the many-body Bethe-Salpeter equation we derive an exchange-correlation kernel $f_{xc}$ that reproduces excitonic effects in bulk materials within time-dependent density functional theory. The resulting $f_{xc}$ accounts for both self-energy corrections and the electron-hole interaction. It is {\em static}, {\em non-local} and has a long-range Coulomb tail. Taking the example of bulk silicon, we show that the $- α/ q^2$ divergency is crucial and can, in the case of continuum excitons, even be sufficient for reproducing the excitonic effects and yielding excellent agreement between the calculated and the experimental absorption spectrum.

cond-mat↗

arXiv2001

Plane-waves DFT-LDA calculation of the electronic structure and absorption spectrum of Copper

We present an accurate, first-principles study of the electronic structure and absorption spectrum of bulk copper within Density Functional Theory in the Local Density Approximation (DFT-LDA), including the study of intraband transitions. We construct norm-conserving pseudopotentials (PPs) including the 3d shell (and optionally the underlying 3s and 3p shells) in the valence, and requiring a relatively small plane-waves basis (60 and 140 Rydbergs cutoff, respectively). As a consequence, these PPs are strongly non-local, yielding to macroscopically wrong results in the absorption spectrum when momentum matrix elements are computed naively. Our results are compared with experimental photoemission, absorption and electron energy loss data, and suggest non trivial self-energy effects in the quasiparticle spectrum of Cu.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2001

Optical Properties of BN in the cubic and in the layered hexagonal phases

Linear optical functions of cubic and hexagonal BN have been studied within first principles DFT-LDA theory. Calculated energy-loss functions compare well with experiments and previous theoretical results both for h-BN and for c-BN. Discrepancies arise between theoretical results and experiments in the imaginary part of the dielectric function for c-BN. Possible explanation to this mismatch are proposed and evaluated; lattice constant variations, h-BN contamination in c-BN samples and self-energy effects.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv1999

Surface versus crystal-termination effects in the optical properties of surfaces

We prove, by realistic microscopic calculations within the sp^3s^* Tight Binding method for GaAs (110) and (100), that the surface optical properties are not influenced by long-range crystal termination effects, and hence that they can be consistently studied considering slabs of limited thickness (20 - 30 Å). The origin of derivative-like and bulk-like lineshapes in Reflection Anisotropy Spectra is also discussed, analyzing the effects arising from possible surface-induced reduction, broadening, and shifting of the bulk spectrum near the surface.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1999

Ab initio optical properties of Si(100)

We compute the linear optical properties of different reconstructions of the clean and hydrogenated Si(100) surface within DFT-LDA, using norm-conserving pseudopotentials. The equilibrium atomic geometries of the surfaces, determined from self-consistent total energy calculations within the Car-Parrinello scheme, strongly influence Reflectance Anisotropy Spectra (RAS), showing differences between the p(2x2) and c(4x2)reconstructions. The Differential Reflectivity spectrum for the c(4x2) reconstruction shows a positive peak at energies < 1 eV, in agreement with experimental results.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv1999

Study of a Nonlocal Density scheme for electronic--structure calculations

An exchange-correlation energy functional beyond the local density approximation, based on the exchange-correlation kernel of the homogeneous electron gas and originally introduced by Kohn and Sham, is considered for electronic structure calculations of semiconductors and atoms. Calculations are carried out for diamond, silicon, silicon carbide and gallium arsenide. The lattice constants and gaps show a small improvement with respect to the LDA results. However, the corresponding corrections to the total energy of the isolated atoms are not large enough to yield a substantial improvement for the cohesive energy of solids, which remains hence overestimated as in the LDA.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1998

Elimination of unoccupied state summations in ab-initio self-energy calculations for large supercells

We present a new method for the computation of self-energy corrections in large supercells. It eliminates the explicit summation over unoccupied states, and uses an iterative scheme based on an expansion of the Green's function around a set of reference energies. This improves the scaling of the computational time from the fourth to the third power of the number of atoms for both the inverse dielectric matrix and the self-energy, yielding improved efficiency for 8 or more silicon atoms per unit cell.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1998

Analytical expressions for the local-field factor G(q) and the exchange-correlation kernel K_{xc}(r) of the homogeneous electron gas

We present an analytical expression for the local field factor G(q) of the homogeneous electron gas which reproduces recently published Quantum Monte--Carlo data by S. Moroni, D.M. Ceperley, and G. Senatore [Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 689 (1995)], reflects the theoretically known asymptotic behaviours for both small and large q limits, and allows to express the exchange-correlation kernel K_{xc} analytically in both the direct and reciprocal spaces. The last property is particularly useful in numerical applications to real solids

cond-mat↗