First-principle calculation of the elastic, band structure, electronic states, and optical properties of Cu-doped ZnS nanolayers

The structural, elastic, electronic, and optical properties of undoped and Cu-doped ZnS nanostructured layers have been studied in the zincblende (ZB) phase, by first-principle approach. Density functional theory (DFT) has been employed to calculate the fundamental properties of the layers using full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave (FPLAPW) method. Mechanical analysis revealed that the bulk modulus increases with the increase of Cu content. Cu doping was found to reduce the band gap value of the material. In addition, DOS effective mass of the electrons and heavy holes was evaluated. Adding Cu caused the decrement/increment of transmission/reflectance of nanolayers in the UV-vis region. The substitution by Cu increased the intensity of the peaks, and a slight red shift was observed in the absorption peak. Moreover, the static dielectric constant, and static refractive index increased with Cu content. The optical conductivity also followed a similar trend to that of the dielectric constants. Energy loss function of the modeled compounds was also evaluated. All calculated parameters were compared with the available experimental and other theoretical results.