Electronic structure and thermodynamic stability ofLaMnO3andLa1−xSrxMnO3(001) surfaces:Ab initiocalculations

We present the results of ab initio hybrid density-functional calculations of the atomic and the electronic structures of ${\text{LaMnO}}_{3}$ (LMO) and ${\text{La}}_{1\ensuremath{-}{x}_{b}}{\text{Sr}}_{{x}_{b}}{\text{MnO}}_{3}$ (001) surfaces. The total energies obtained from these calculations were used to analyze thermodynamic stability of the surfaces. We predict Sr and O vacancy segregation to the surface to occur with similar energies ($\ensuremath{\sim}0.5\text{ }\text{eV}$ per defect). In pure LMO only ${\text{MnO}}_{2}$ termination is thermodynamically favorable under typical operational conditions of a cathode in solid oxide fuel cells, whereas Sr doping makes La(Sr)O termination favorable. Finally, the role of Sr doping in cathode degradation is discussed.