First Principles Calculations on Cu-Doped TiO2
The electronic and optical properties of tetragonal rutile TiO2 are investigated by first principles calculations using plane-wave pseudopotentials. Generalized gradient approximation proposed by Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (GGA-PBE) is employed with Vanderbilt’s ultrasoft pseudopotentials (USPs) for the geometry optimization. The cutoff energy 380 eV and Monkhorst-Pack (MP) grid of size 5 x 5 x 8 is used to study the electronic properties of TiO2. Besides, the optical properties of TiO2 are studied using a mesh size of 9 x 9 x 9. A periodic supercell of size 2a x 2b x 2c is created and a single Copper (Cu) atom directly substitutes the titanium atom. The geometry is optimized at cutoff energy 440 eV with MP grid of size 3 x 3 x 8 and a denser k-points mesh of size 6 x 6 x 6 is used for the investigation of optical properties.