Ab initio study of electronic structure, elastic and optical properties of anti-perovskite type alkali metal oxyhalides

We report the structural, elastic, electronic, and optical properties of antiperovskite alkali metal oxyhalides Na3OCl, Na3OBr, and K3OBr using two different density functional methods within generalized gradient approximation (GGA). Plane wave pseudo potential (PW-PP) method has been used to calculate the ground state structural and elastic properties while the electronic structure and optical properties are calculated explicitly using full potential-linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method. The calculated ground state properties of the investigated compounds agree quite well with the available experimental data. The predicted elastic constants using both PW-PP and FP-LAPW methods are in good accord with each other and show that the materials are mechanically stable. The low values of the elastic moduli indicate that these materials are soft in nature. The bulk properties such as shear moduli, Young's moduli, and Poisson's ratio are derived from the calculated elastic constants. Tran-Blaha modified Becke-Johnson (TB-mBJ) potential improves the band gaps over GGA and Engel-Vosko GGA. The computed TB-mBJ electronic band structure reveals that these materials are direct band gap insulators. The complex dielectric function of the metal oxyhalide compounds have been calculated and the observed prominent peaks are analyzed through the TB-mBJ electronic structures. By using the knowledge of complex dielectric function other important optical properties including absorption, reflectivity, refractive index and loss function have been obtained as a function of energy. (C) 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.