Modeling charged defects inside density functional theory band gaps

Density functional theory (DFT) has emerged as an important tool to probe microscopic behavior in materials. The fundamental band gap defines the energy scale for charge transition energy levels of point defects in ionic and covalent materials. The eigenvalue gap between occupied and unoccupied states in conventional DFT, the Kohn–Sham gap, is often half or less of the experimental band gap, seemingly precluding quantitative studies of charged defects. Applying explicit and rigorous control of charge boundary conditions in supercells, we find that calculations of defect energy levels derived from total energy differences give accurate predictions of charge transition energy levels in Si and GaAs, unhampered by a band gap problem. The GaAs system provides a good theoretical laboratory for investigating band gap effects in defect level calculations: depending on the functional and pseudopotential, the Kohn–Sham gap can be as large as 1.1 eV or as small as 0.1 eV. We find that the effective defect band gap, the computed range in defect levels, is mostly insensitive to the Kohn–Sham gap, demonstrating it is often possible to use conventional DFT for quantitative studies of defect chemistry governing interesting materials behavior in semiconductors and oxides despite a band gap problem.