Theoretical investigations of structural, electronic and elastic properties of U2S3 type Nb2N3 under high pressure

The structural, electronic and elastic properties of U2S3 type Nb2N3 under pressure ranging from 0 GPa to 100 GPa are investigated by plane-wave pseudopotential density functional theory with the generalized gradient approximation in this paper. The results at zero pressure are in good agreement with available theoretical results. The properties of U2S3 type Nb2N3 are compared to the new synthetic superhard material η-Ta2N3. The results show that U2S3 type Nb2N3 is hard to compress, and expected to have comparable hardness to η-Ta2N3.