Ab initio study of the lattice thermal conductivity of Cu2 O using the generalized gradient approximation and hybrid density functional methods

The lattice thermal conductivity of Cu2O was studied using ab initio density functional methods. The performance of generalized gradient approximation (GGA), GGA-PBE, and PBE0 exchange-correlation functionals was compared for various electronic and phonon-related properties. The 3d transition metal oxides such as Cu2O are known to be a challenging case for pure GGA functionals, and in comparison to the GGA-PBE the PBE0 hybrid functional clearly improves the description of both electronic and phonon-related properties. The most striking difference is found in the lattice thermal conductivity, where the GGA underestimates it as much as 40% in comparison to experiments, while the difference between the experiment and the PBE0 hybrid functional is only a few percent.