Theoretical Comparison of Oxygen Adsorption on Cu(100) Surface

The interaction of atomic oxygen with the clean Cu(100) surface has been studied by means of cluster and periodic slab models density functional theory in the present paper. The Cu(4,9,4) cluster and a three-layer slab with c(2×2) structure are used to model the perfect Cu(100) surface. Three possible adsorption sites,top, bridge and hollow site, were considered in the calculations. The predicted results show that the hollow site is the prefer site for atomic oxygen adsorbed on Cu(100) surface energetically. This is in good agreement with the experiment. The calculated binding energies are respective 2.014, 3.154 and 3.942 eV for top, bridge and hollow sites at mPW1PW91/LanL2dz level for the cluster model. The geometry of Cu(100) surface has also been optimized theoretically with various density functional methods and the results show that the prediction from the B3PW91/LanL2dz and mPW1PW91/LanL2dz reproduce the experimental observation.The frontier molecular orbitals and partial density of states analysis show that the electron transfer from the d orbital of substrate to the p orbital of the surface oxygen atom.