Enhanced superconductivity in SnSb under pressure: a first principles study

Impurity induced cross luminescence in KMgCl3: an ab initio study

Density functional theory calculations have been carried out to calculate the electronic structure and optical properties of host and Cs doped KMgCl₃. All the calculations were performed by using the Tran and Blaha modified Becke-Johnson potential (TB-mBJ) in order to accurately predict the band gap and the optical spectra. The investigated compound is found to be an insulator with direct band gap of 4.7, 6.9 eV using generalized gradient approximation (GGA), and TB-mBJ functionals respectively. The calculated refractive index shows the optical isotropy of this compound in the low energy region, though the structure is anisotropic. From our theoretical calculations we predict KMgCl₃ doped with Cs to be a better cross luminescence material compared to host compound, where additional Cs states are present below the valence band of the compound. Detailed discussion is presented in the manuscript.

Pressure Effect of the Vibrational and Thermodynamic Properties of Chalcopyrite-Type Compound AgGaS₂: A First-Principles Investigation

To explore the structural, vibrational, and thermodynamic properties of the chalcopyrite-type compound AgGaS₂ under pressure, we applied hydrostatic pressure to the relaxed compound based on the first principles calculation and quasi-harmonic approximation. The structural parameters, including lattice constants and bond lengths decrease monotonically with the increasing pressure. The phonon dispersion curves under various pressures reveal the structural phase transition of chalcopyrite-type compound AgGaS₂ at about 4 GPa. The intrinsic mechanism of thermal conductivity for the chalcopyrite-type compound AgGaS₂ has been shown with phonon anharmonicity. The frequencies of the optical phonons at the center point Γ of the first Brillouin zone were calculated with the longitudinal optical–transverse optical (LO–TO) splitting mode. The dependence of the frequencies of the optical phonons on the pressure provides the information for the Raman spectroscopic study under high pressure. The pressure dependence of the Grüneisen parameters indicates that the instability of chalcopyrite-type compound AgGaS₂ is associated with the softening of the acoustic phonon modes at around the center point Γ. The thermal conductivity for chalcopyrite-type compound AgGaS₂ could be reduced by applying external pressure. The various thermodynamic properties, such as the Helmholtz free energy, entropy, and heat capacity, at different temperatures and pressures were discussed and analyzed based on the phonon properties.