BaTiO3‐based nanolayers and nanotubes: First‐principles calculations

The first‐principles calculations using hybrid exchange‐correlation functional and localized atomic basis set are performed for BaTiO₃ (BTO) nanolayers and nanotubes (NTs) with the structure optimization. Both the cubic and the ferroelectric BTO phases are used for the nanolayers and NTs modeling. It follows from the calculations that nanolayers of the different ferroelectric BTO phases have the practically identical surface energies and are more stable than nanolayers of the cubic phase. Thin nanosheets composed of three or more dense layers of (0 1 0) and (0 1 ) faces preserve the ferroelectric displacements inherent to the initial bulk phase. The structure and stability of BTO single‐wall NTs depends on the original bulk crystal phase and a wall thickness. The majority of the considered NTs with the low formation and strain energies has the mirror plane perpendicular to the tube axis and therefore cannot exhibit ferroelectricity. The NTs folded from (0 1 ) layers may show antiferroelectric arrangement of Ti? O bonds. Comparison of stability of the BTO‐based and SrTiO₃‐based NTs shows that the former are more stable than the latter. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.