Ab initio studies of structural, electronic, magnetic and mechanical properties of alkali earth metal silicides

Alkali earth metal silicides MSi (M = Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba) are multi-phase compound and exist simultaneously in CrB, CsCl, NaCl or rock salt (RS) and zinc blende (zb) structures. In the CrB and CsCl phases, their behavior is metallic in the non-magnetic (NM) as well as the ferromagnetic (FM) structure. The total spin magnetic moment of these compounds in the zb phase is more than that in the corresponding RS phase; therefore, detailed studies for the zb phase are presented in this paper. This study includes structural, electronic and mechanical properties by using the full potential linear augmented plain wave scheme with local orbitals. Ferromagnetic CaSi, SrSi and BaSi show true half-metallic character. For a better understanding of the half-metallicity in the above-mentioned sp-type compounds, their band structures have been calculated and densities of state plots have been produced. The FM structures are more stable and harder than the corresponding NM structures. The magnetic moment corresponding to equilibrium lattice constants is calculated as 2 mu B for FM CaSi, SrSi and BaSi, which are in accordance with the earlier work on the sp-type compounds CaC, SrC and BaC. The FM character changes to the paramagnetic character as the lattice parameter decreases. The general trend is that the values of the elastic constants C-11, C-12 and C-44 increase with increasing hydrostatic pressure.