Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
We study structural and electronic properties of the oxygen vacancy in monoclinic HfO2 for five different charge states. We use a hybrid density functional to accurately reproduce the experimental band gap. To compare with measured defect levels, we determine total-energy differences appropriate to the considered experiments. Our results show that the oxygen vacancy can consistently account for the defect levels observed in optical absorption, direct electron injection, and trap-assisted conduction experiments.