Abstract
We examined the formal oxidation states of Pb and Cu in the Pb2CuO4 slab of Pb2Sr2ACu3O8(A=Y1-xCaxor Nd1-xSrx) and their possible changes by oxygen incorporation in the Cu layer of the slab by performing tight-binding band electronic structure calculations on the Pb2CuO4+δ slab. Our results show that the most likely oxidation state of Pb is +2 and that of Cu is +1 for the Pb2CuO4 slab prior to oxidation. With small δ values, the oxygen incorporation occurs by the formation of such chain fragments as in YBa2Cu3O7-y along the a+b axis. The four-coordinate Cu atoms in the chain fragments are in the +3 oxidation states. For values of δ larger than 0.5, however, an additional oxygen (Oad) goes to the site along the b axis to form short Pb-Oad distances oxidizing Pb2+ to Pb4+. This change in the Pb oxidation state leads to the suppression of superconductivity due to the decrease of holes in the CuO2 layer.