Ab initio studies of structural, electronic, optical, elastic and thermal properties of silver gallium dichalcogenides (AgGaX2: X = S, Se, Te)

• FP-LAPW method has been used to compute the solid state properties of AgGaX2 (X = S, Se, Te).
• Electronic and optical properties reported with recently developed mBJ potential.
• Thermal expansion, heat capacity, Debye temperature, entropy and Grüneisen parameter were evaluated.
• Hardness was calculated for the first time at different temperature and pressure.

We have performed ab initio calculations for the structural, electronic, optical, elastic and thermal properties of the silver gallium dichalcogenides (AgGaX2: X = S, Se, Te). In this study, we have used the accurate full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method to find the equilibrium structural parameters and to compute the six elastic constants (C11, C12, C13, C33, C44 and C66). We have reported electronic and optical properties with the recently developed density functional theory of Tran and Blaha, and this theory is used along with the Wu-Cohen generalized gradient approximation (WC-GGA) for the exchange-correlation potential. Furthermore, optical features such as dielectric functions, refractive indices, extinction coefficient, optical reflectivity, absorption coefficients and optical conductivities were calculated for photon energies up to 40 eV. The thermodynamical properties such as thermal expansion, heat capacity, debye temperature, entropy, Grüneisen parameter and bulk modulus were calculated employing the quasi-harmonic Debye model at different temperatures (0–900 K) and pressures (0–8 GPa) and the silent results were interpreted. Hardness of the materials was calculated for the first time at different temperatures and pressures.

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