TITLE:
Electronic and Structural Properties of Li3AlP2 and Li3AlAs2 from First Principles
AUTHORS:
Mehrdad Dadsetani, Shirin Namjoo
KEYWORDS:
Filled Tetrahedral Semiconductors, Electronic Properties, FP-LAPW, DFT
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Modern Physics,
Vol.2 No.9,
September
16,
2011
ABSTRACT: A detailed analysis of the electronic and structural properties of the filled tetrahedral semiconductors Li3AlP2 and Li3AlAs2 has been performed, using the full potential linearized augmented plane wave method within the density functional theory. Experimental results about the structural properties, involves the positions of the elements Al and P(As). Since there were not any other efforts about the positions of the Li elements in these compounds, so to our knowledge there was no theoretical study about them till now. In the first step the interactional forces between atoms were minimized. The calculated internal coordinations of atoms agree well with the experimental results. Using these positions we obtained the equilibrium lattice constants, bulk modulus and their pressure derivative. In the second step the electronic properties of Li3AlP2 and Li3AlAs2 have been studied. The study of total and partial electronic DOS indicate the main contribution of DOS consists of P(As) 3p(4p) and P(As) 3s(4s) states. Our band structure calculation verifies that Li3AlP2 is an indirect gap semiconductor with a value of about 2.36 eV between valance band maximum occuring at H point and conduction band minimum occuring at Г point; though the difference between the direct (2.38 eV) and indirect (2.36 eV) is very small. We also found that Li3AlAs2 is a direct band gap (1.49 eV) in the center of BZ.