Electronic, elastic and dynamical properties of MgSe under pressure: rocksalt and iron silicide phase

Abstract

The electronic, elastic and dynamical properties of MgSe in the rocksalt (B1) and iron silicide (B28) phase and the effects of pressure on these properties are investigated using first-principles method. The calculated electronic band structure indicates that the B1 phase of MgSe presents an indirect band-gap feature and the band gaps initially increase with pressure and subsequently decrease upon compression. Remarkably, an indirect-to-direct band-gap transition has been observed at the phase transition pressure. The elastic constants, bulk modulus, shear modulus, Young’s modulus, elastic anisotropy and B/G ratio of MgSe in the B1 and B28 phase at high pressure have also been investigated. The bulk modulus, shear modulus and Young’s modulus all increase monotonously with the increasing of pressure for the B1 and B28 phase of MgSe. The calculated phonon frequencies of the B1 phase at zero pressure agree well with available theoretical results. And the transverse acoustic phonon TA(X) mode of this phase completely softening to zero at 82 GPa. The phonon curves of the B28 phase under pressure have also been successfully investigated.

Keywords:

• electronic properties
• elastic properties
• dynamical properties
• high pressure

Acknowledgements

The authors will like to thank the financial support by the Introducing Talents of Scientific Research project of Chongqing Jiaotong University. The authors also acknowledge the support from Dr X. Gonze and his coworkers for providing their version of ABINIT code.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.