Pseudo-half-metalicity in the double perovskite Sr2_2CrReO6_6 from density-functional calculations

The electronic structure of the spintronic material Sr$_2$CrReO$_6$ is studied by means of full-potential linear muffin-tin orbital method. Scalar relativistic calculations predict Sr$_2$CrReO$_6$ to be half-metallic with a magnetic moment of 1 $\mu_B$. When spin-orbit coupling is included, the half-metallic gap closes into a pseudo-gap, and an unquenched rhenium orbital moment appears, resulting in a significant increase of the total magnetic moment to 1.28 $\mu_B$. This moment is significantly larger than the experimental moment of 0.9 $\mu_B$. A possible explanation of this discrepancy is that the anti-site disorder in Sr$_2$CrReO$_6$ is significantly larger than hitherto assumed.Comment: 3 Pages, 1 figure, 1 Tabl

Phase Stability and Thermoelectric Properties of the Mineral FeS2: An Ab Initio Study

First principles calculations were carried out to study the phase stability and thermoelectric properties of the naturally occurring marcasite phase of FeS$_2$ at ambient condition as well as under pressure. Two distinct density functional approaches has been used to investigate the above mentioned properties. The plane wave pseudopotential approach was used to study the phase stability and structural, elastic, and vibrational properties. The full potential linear augment plane wave method has been used to study the electronic structure and thermoelectric properties. From the total energy calculations, it is clearly seen that marcasite FeS$_2$ is stable at ambient conditions, and it undergoes a first order phase transition to pyrite FeS$_2$ at around 3.7 GPa with a volume collapse of about 3$\%$. The calculated ground state properties such as lattice parameters, bond lengths and bulk modulus of marcasite FeS$_2$ agree quite well with the experiment. Apart from the above studies, phonon dispersion curves unambiguously indicate that marcasite phase is stable under ambient conditions. Further, we do not observe any phonon softening across the marcasite to pyrite transition and the possible reason driving the transition is also analyzed in the present study, which has not been attempted earlier. In addition, we have also calculated the electronic structure and thermoelectric properties of the both marcasite and pyrite FeS$_2$. We find a high thermopower for both the phases, especially with p-type doping, which enables us to predict that FeS$_2$ might find promising applications as good thermoelectric materials.Comment: 10 Figure

Thermoelectric properties of zinc based pnictide semiconductors

We report a detailed first principles density functional calculations to understand the electronic structure and transport properties of Zn-based pnictides ZnXPn 2 (X: Si, Ge, and Sn; Pn: P and As) and ZnSiSb 2 . The electronic properties calculated using Tran-Blaha modified Becke-Johnson func- tional reveals the semi-conducting nature, and the resulting band gaps are in good agreement with experimental and other theoretical reports. We find a mixture of heavy and light bands in the band structure which is an advantage for good thermoelectric (TE) properties. The calculated transport properties unveils the favour p-type conduction in ZnXP 2 (X: Si, Ge, and Sn) and n-type conduc- tion in ZnGeP 2 and ZnSiAs 2 . Comparison of transport properties of Zn-based pnictides with the prototype chalcopyrite thermoelectric materials implies that the thermopower values of the investi- gated compounds to be higher when compared with the prototype chalcopyrite thermoelectric materials, together with the comparable values for electrical conductivity scaled by relaxation time. In addition to this, Zn-based pnictides are found to possess higher thermopower than well known traditional TE materials at room temperature and above which motivates further research in these compounds