Nature of SrTiO3/TiO2 (anatase) heterostructure from hybrid density functional theory calculations

In this work, we investigate the structural and electronic properties of the SrTiO3/TiO2 (anatase) heterostructure by means of hybrid density functional theory calculations. The work is motivated by several experiments that pointed to SrTiO3/TiO2 as a good system for photocatalytic applications, due to the small lattice mismatch between these two oxides and their favorable band alignment, leading to a type-II heterojunction, favoring the charge-carrier separation. The present results provide insights into the nature of the contact region and an estimation of the band offsets in the composite system. Our results are also compared with the available experimental values and with previous theoretical reports. The calculated offsets quantitatively agree with experimental measurements. In addition, we found significant interfacial effects that make the band offsets slightly increase with respect to those of the separated components. Last, we also discuss the role of point defects such as oxygen vacancies, finding that they do not remarkably affect the band alignment.