Electronic structure and dynamical correlations in antiferromagnetic BiFeO3

DOI

<p>We study the electronic structure and dynamical correlations in antiferromagnetic BiFeO<sub>3</sub>, a prototypical room-temperature multiferroic, using a variety of static and dynamical first-principles methods. Conventional static Hubbard corrections (DFT+U, DFT+U+V) incorrectly predict a deep-valence Fe 3d peak (around -7 eV) in antiferromagnetic BiFeO<sub>3</sub>, in contradiction with hard-X-ray photoemission. We resolve this failure by using a recent generalization of DFT+U to include a frequency-dependent screening – DFT+U(ω) – or using a dynamical Hubbard functional (dynH). The screened Coulomb interaction U(ω), computed with spin-polarized RPA and projected onto maximally localized Fe 3d Wannier orbitals, is expressed as a sum-over-poles, yielding a self-energy that augments the Kohn–Sham Hamiltonian. This DFT+U(ω) approach predicts a fundamental band gap of 1.53 eV, consistent with experiments, and completely eliminates the unphysical deep-valence peak. The resulting simulated HAXPES spectrum reproduces the experimental lineshape with an accuracy comparable to state-of-the-art approaches. Our work highlights the critical nature of dynamical screening in complex oxides and of DFT+U(ω) as a predictive and computationally efficient approach to address the electronic structure of correlated materials.</p>

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:hy-2z
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2511.23181
Related Identifier https://archive.materialscloud.org/communities/mcarchive
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:b3-x6
Metadata Access https://archive.materialscloud.org/oai2d?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai:materialscloud.org:jwwje-1nc89
Provenance
Creator Wu, Yihan; Caserta, Mario; Chiarotti, Tommaso; Marzari, Nicola
Publisher Materials Cloud
Contributor Marzari, Nicola
Publication Year 2026
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
OpenAccess true
Contact archive(at)materialscloud.org
Representation
Language English
Resource Type info:eu-repo/semantics/other
Format application/zip; text/plain
Discipline Materials Science and Engineering