Work function of elemental metals and its face dependence: Stabilized Jellium approach

Abstract

The stabilizing potentials and work functions of elemental metals were calculated for the flat surface, the (111), (100) and (110) faces using the stabilized jellium model. The calculated work functions were compared with experimental values and calculated values obtained using the ab initio method. The stabilizing potentials for the different faces of the metals revealed that the less densely packed faces require higher potential for stabilization in the stabilized jellium model. The calculated work functions for the flat surface of the metals were in perfect agreement with experimental values for metals in the low-density limit and the agreement with experimental values decreased towards the high-density limit. The calculated work functions for the body centred cubic metals were in good agreement with experimental values. The calculated work function for the hexagonal close packed metals were in fairly good agreement with experimental values while the degree of agreement with experimental values was least for face centred cubic metals. The work functions of metals calculated in this work revealed that the more closely packed faces have higher work functions. The results obtained in this work revealed that the stabilized jellium model could be used to predict fairly well the work function of metals and calculate other metallic properties.

JONAMP Vol. 11 2007: pp. 445-454