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Short-circuit boundary conditions in ferroelectric PbTiO3 thin films

Alexie M. Kolpak, Na Sai, Andrew M. Rappe

cond-mat.mtrl-sciarXiv:cond-mat/0512670

Abstract

We examine the application of short-circuit electrical boundary conditions in density functional theory calculations of ferroelectric thin films. Modeling PbTiO3 films with Pt electrodes, we demonstrate that under periodic boundary conditions of supercells, short-circuit conditions for the electrodes are equivalently satisfied in two repeated slab geometries: a PbTiO3/metal superlattice geometry and a periodic metal/PbTiO3/metal/vacuum geometry, where the metal is Pt or SrRuO3. We discuss the benefits of each geometry in the study of ferroelectricity in thin films.

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