Influence of H, H2, O and O2 on Armchair SiGe Nanotubes: A Theoretical Study

Abstract

A systematic, hybrid density functional theory study of interaction between SiGe nanotubes (SiGeNTs) and X (X = H, O, H2 and O2) have been performed using the hybrid functional B3LYP and an all electron 3-21G* basis set implemented in GAUSSIAN 09 suite of software. All possible internal and external adsorption sites were considered, and it was found that H prefers to move onto top of an atom site while O prefers to incorporate into NT wall by breaking the bonds. Adsorption energies for H is ∼2.0 eV and for O it is ∼5.0 eV. Controlled adsorption of atomic H and several molecular O give rises to defect density states in the frontier orbital region. H rich adsorptions predict the difference between highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy increase while O rich adsorptions predict the decrease in HOMO-LUMO energy gap. O and O2 adsorptions predict definite ionic bonding character while H atomic adsorptions predict covalent bonding. H2 is very neutral towards the adsorption into SiGeNTs and clearly shows the physisorption adsorption. Considering the all adsorptions, the adsorptions happened within the Si vicinity of the SiGeNT shows the most stable and preferred adsorption region.