The bond description of semiconductors: Polycompounds

Accurate Prediction of Band Structure of FeS2: A Hard Quest of Advanced First-Principles Approaches

The pyrite and marcasite polymorphs of FeS2 have attracted considerable interests for their potential applications in optoelectronic devices because of their appropriate electronic and optical properties. Controversies regarding their fundamental band gaps remain in both experimental and theoretical materials research of FeS2. In this work, we present a systematic theoretical investigation into the electronic band structures of the two polymorphs by using many-body perturbation theory with the GW approximation implemented in the full-potential linearized augmented plane waves (FP-LAPW) framework. By comparing the quasi-particle (QP) band structures computed with the conventional LAPW basis and the one extended by high-energy local orbitals (HLOs), denoted as LAPW + HLOs, we find that one-shot or partially self-consistent GW (G 0 W 0 and GW 0, respectively) on top of the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) generalized gradient approximation with a converged LAPW + HLOs basis is able to remedy the artifact reported in the previous GW calculations, and leads to overall good agreement with experiment for the fundamental band gaps of the two polymorphs. Density of states calculated from G 0 W 0@PBE with the converged LAPW + HLOs basis agrees well with the energy distribution curves from photo-electron spectroscopy for pyrite. We have also investigated the performances of several hybrid functionals, which were previously shown to be able to predict band gaps of many insulating systems with accuracy close or comparable to GW. It is shown that the hybrid functionals considered in general fail badly to describe the band structures of FeS2 polymorphs. This work indicates that accurate prediction of electronic band structure of FeS2 poses a stringent test on state-of-the-art first-principles approaches, and the G 0 W 0 method based on semi-local approximation performs well for this difficult system if it is practiced with well-converged numerical accuracy.

Chemical Bonding in Colossal Thermopower FeSb2

FeSb₂ exhibits a colossal Seebeck coefficient ( S ) and a record-breaking high thermoelectric power factor. It also has an atypical shift from diamagnetism to paramagnetism with increasing temperature, and the fine details of its electron correlation effects have been widely discussed. The extraordinary physical properties must be rooted in the nature of the chemical bonding, and indeed, the chemical bonding in this archetypical marcasite structure has been heavily debated on a theoretical basis since the 1960s. The two prevalent models for describing the bonding interactions in FeSb₂ are based on either ligand-field stabilization of Fe or a network structure of Sb hosting Fe ions. However, neither model can account for the observed properties of FeSb₂ . Herein, an experimental electron density study is reported, which is based on analysis of synchrotron X-ray diffraction data measured at 15 K on a minute single crystal to limit systematic errors. The analysis is supplemented with density functional theory calculations in the experimental geometry. The experimental data are at variance with both the additional single-electron Sb-Sb bond implied by the covalent model, and the large formal charge and expected d-orbital splitting advocated by the ionic model. The structure is best described as an extended covalent network in agreement with expectations based on electronegativity differences.

Compression behaviors of binary skutterudite CoP3 in noble gases up to 40 GPa at room temperature

The binary skutterudite CoP(3) has a large void at the body-centered site of each cubic unit cell and is, therefore, called a nonfilled skutterudite. We investigated its room-temperature compression behavior up to 40.4 GPa in helium and argon using a diamond-anvil cell. High-pressure in situ X-ray diffraction and Raman scattering measurements found no phase transition and a stable cubic structure up to the maximum pressure in both media. A fitting of the present pressure-volume data to the third-order Birch-Murnaghan equation of state yields a zero-pressure bulk modulus K(0) of 147(3) GPa [pressure derivative K(0)' of 4.4(2)] and 171(5) GPa [where K(0)' = 4.2(4)] in helium and argon, respectively. The Grüneisen parameter was determined to be 1.4 from the Raman scattering measurements. Thus, CoP(3) is stiffer than other binary skutterudites and could therefore be used as a host cage to accommodate large atoms under high pressure without structural collapse.