Density Functional Study of Benzoic Acid Derivatives Modified SnO2 (110) Surface

Abstract

ABSTRACTTin oxide is one of the popular metal oxide semiconductor used in solar cells, sensors, and catalysts. The surface modification by organic self assembled monolayer is one of the promising techniques to tune and to control the surface work function. In our study, we investigated the work function change of the SnO2 (110) surface which was modified with various benzoic acids derivatives using density functional theory (DFT). All calculations were carried out on Quantum Espresso program. Electron correlation and exchange parts were treated by local density (LDA), generalized gradient approximation (GGA) with Hubbard U term. To improve band structure calculation we used LDA+U method. The results of the calculation with LDA method indicated that the work functions of the pure and modified surface of SnO2 (110) with -C6H4-COOH molecule were calculated to be 7.40 eV and 6.18 eV, respectively. As the experimental value of work function of SnO2 (110) surface is about 7.74 eV, the results of the DFT calculation for pure SnO2 (110) surface modification by benzoic acid derivatives are in good agreement with the experimental.