Understanding the effects of Cr doping in rutile TiO2 by DFT calculations and X-ray spectroscopy

Abstract

Abstract The effects of Cr on local environment and electronic structure of rutile TiO 2 are studied combining theoretical and experimental approaches. Neutral and negatively charged substitutional Cr impurities Cr Ti 0 and Cr Ti 1− as well as Cr-oxygen vacancy complex 2Cr Ti + V O are studied by the density functional theory (DFT) within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) of Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) functional. Experimental results based on X-Ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) performed on Cr doped TiO 2 at the Synchrotron facility were compared to the theoretical results. It is shown that the electrons of the oxygen vacancy tend to be localized at the t 2 g states of the Cr ions in order to reach the stable oxidation state of Cr 3+ . Effects of Cr on crystal field (CF) and structural distortions in the rutile TiO 2 cell were analyzed by the DFT calculations and XAS spectra revealing that the CF and tetragonal distortions in TiO 2 are very sensitive to the concentration of Cr.