Pressure-engineered optical properties and emergent superconductivity in chalcopyrite semiconductor ZnSiP2
Source abstract
Abstract
Abstract Chalcopyrite II-IV-V2 semiconductors are promising materials in nonlinear optical, optoelectronic, and photovoltaic applications. In this work, pressure-tailored optical properties as well as pressure-driven emergent superconductivity in chalcopyrite ZnSiP2 are reported via photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy and electrical transport experiments. During compression, the PL peak energy exhibits a plateau between 1.4 and 8.7 GPa, which is accompanied by a piezochromic transition and correlated with the progressive development of cation disorder. Upon further compression across a phase transition from tetragonal to cubic rock-salt structure, superconductivity with a critical temperature Tc ~ 8.2 K emerges immediately. Tc decreases in the range of 24.6–37.1 GPa but inversely increases at higher pressures, thereby exhibiting an unusual V-shaped superconducting phase diagram. These findings present vivid structure–property relationships, which not only offer important clues to optimize the optical and electronic properties, but also provide a new way to use compression to switch between different functionalities.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Chalcogenide Semiconductor Thin Films · Iron-based superconductors research · Copper-based nanomaterials and applications
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (39)
Show source-provided references
1. Li, W. et al. A new family of cation-disordered Zn(Cu)–Si–P compounds as high-performance anodes for next-generation Li-ion batteries. Energy Environ. Sci. 12, 2286–2297 (2019).10.1039/C9EE00953A ↗
2. Martinez, A. D. et al. Solar energy conversion properties and defect physics of ZnSiP2. Energy Environ. Sci. 9, 1031–1041 (2016).10.1039/C5EE02884A ↗
3. Medvedkin, G. A. & Voevodin, V. G. Magnetic and optical phenomena in nonlinear optical crystals ZnGeP2 and CdGeP2. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 22, 1884 (2005).10.1364/JOSAB.22.001884 ↗
4. He, G., Rozahun, I., Li, Z., Zhang, J. & Lee, M.-H. Size effect and identified superior functional units enhancing second harmonic generation responses on the II-IV-V2 type nonlinear optical crystals. Chem. Phys. 518, 101–106 (2019).10.1016/j.chemphys.2018.11.010 ↗
5. Martinez, A. D. et al. Development of ZnSiP2 for Si-based tandem solar cells. IEEE J. Photovolt. 5, 17–21 (2015).10.1109/JPHOTOV.2014.2362305 ↗
6. Scanlon, D. O. & Walsh, A. Bandgap engineering of ZnSnP2 for high-efficiency solar cells. Appl. Phys. Lett. 100, 251911 (2012).10.1063/1.4730375 ↗
7. Sreeparvathy, P. C., Kanchana, V. & Vaitheeswaran, G. Thermoelectric properties of zinc based pnictide semiconductors. J. Appl. Phys. 119, 085701 (2016).10.1063/1.4942011 ↗
8. Li, R. et al. High-throughput screening for advanced thermoelectric materials: diamond-like ABX2 compounds. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 11, 24859–24866 (2019).10.1021/acsami.9b01196 ↗
9. Shay, J. L., Tell, B., Buehler, E. & Wernick, J. H. Band structure of ZnGeP2 and ZnSiP2—ternary compounds with pseudodirect energy gaps. Phys. Rev. Lett. 30, 983–986 (1973).10.1103/PhysRevLett.30.983 ↗
10. Sadhukhan, B., Zhang, Y., Ray, R. & van den Brink, J. First-principles calculation of shift current in chalcopyrite semiconductor ZnSnP2. Phys. Rev. Mater. 4, 064602 (2020).10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.4.064602 ↗
11. Martinez, A. D., Fioretti, A. N., Toberer, E. S. & Tamboli, A. C. Synthesis, structure, and optoelectronic properties of II–IV–V2 materials. J. Mater. Chem. A 5, 11418–11435 (2017).10.1039/C7TA00406K ↗
12. Martinez, A. D. et al. Growth of amorphous and epitaxial ZnSiP2–Si alloys on Si. J. Mater. Chem. C. 6, 2696–2703 (2018).10.1039/C7TC05545E ↗
13. Liu, H. et al. The pressure-effects on phase transitions, band structures, electronic and elastic properties of ternary compounds ZnXP2 (X = Si, Ge, Sn) by first principle calculations. Mater. Res. Express 5, 126303 (2018).10.1088/2053-1591/aae11e ↗
14. Zhang, L. et al. Pressure-induced emission enhancement, band-gap narrowing, and metallization of halide perovskite Cs3Bi2I9. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 57, 11213–11217 (2018).10.1002/anie.201804310 ↗
15. Yuan, Y. et al. Large band gap narrowing and prolonged carrier lifetime of (C4H9NH3)2PbI4 under high pressure. Adv. Sci. 6, 1900240 (2019).10.1002/advs.201900240 ↗
16. Liang, Y. et al. New metallic ordered phase of perovskite CsPbI3 under pressure. Adv. Sci. 6, 1900399 (2019).10.1002/advs.201900399 ↗
17. Wang, Y. et al. Pressure-induced phase transformation, reversible amorphization, and anomalous visible light response in organolead bromide perovskite. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 137, 11144–11149 (2015).10.1021/jacs.5b06346 ↗
18. Liu, G. et al. Pressure-induced bandgap optimization in lead-based perovskites with prolonged carrier lifetime and ambient retainability. Adv. Funct. Mater. 27, 1604208 (2017).10.1002/adfm.201604208 ↗
19. Jaffe, A. et al. High-pressure single-crystal structures of 3D lead-halide hybrid perovskites and pressure effects on their electronic and optical properties. ACS Cent. Sci. 2, 201–209 (2016).10.1021/acscentsci.6b00055 ↗
20. Chi, Z. et al. Superconductivity in pristine 2Ha-MoS2 at ultrahigh pressure. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 037002 (2018).10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.037002 ↗
21. Zhou, Y. et al. Pressure-induced metallization and robust superconductivity in pristine 1T-SnSe2. Adv. Electron. Mater. 4, 1800155 (2018).10.1002/aelm.201800155 ↗
22. Bhadram, V. S. et al. Pressure-induced structural transition in chalcopyrite ZnSiP2. Appl. Phys. Lett. 110, 182106 (2017).10.1063/1.4981889 ↗
23. Arab, F., Sahraoui, F. A., Haddadi, K. & Louail, L. Ab initio investigations of structural, elastic and electronic properties of ZnSiP2: Pressure effect. Comp. Mater. Sci. 65, 520–527 (2012).10.1016/j.commatsci.2012.08.012 ↗
24. Spring-Thorpe, A. J. & Pamplin, B. R. Growth of some single crystal II–IV–V2 semiconducting compounds. J. Cryst. Growth 3−4, 313–316 (1968).10.1016/0022-0248(68)90163-2 ↗
25. Prescher, C. & Prakapenka, V. B. DIOPTAS: a program for reduction of two-dimensional X-ray diffraction data and data exploration. High. Press. Res. 35, 223–230 (2015).10.1080/08957959.2015.1059835 ↗
26. Hunter, B. A. Rietica—A Visual Rietveld Program, International Union of Crystallography Commission on Powder Diffraction Newsletter No. 20, http://www.rietica.org, (1998).
27. Mao, H. K., Xu, J. & Bell, P. M. Calibration of the ruby pressure gauge to 800 kbar under quasi-hydrostatic conditions. J. Geophys. Res. 91, 4673–4676 (1986).10.1029/JB091iB05p04673 ↗
28. Gontijo, R. N. et al. Temperature dependence of the double-resonance Raman bands in monolayer MoS2. J. Raman Spectrosc. 50, 1867–1874 (2019).10.1002/jrs.5736 ↗
29. Dey, P. et al. Optical coherence in atomic-monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides limited by electron-phonon interactions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 127402 (2016).10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.127402 ↗
30. Birch, F. Finite elastic strain of cubic crystals. Phys. Rev. 71, 809–824 (1947).10.1103/PhysRev.71.809 ↗
31. Peña-Pedraza, H., López-Rivera, S. A., Martin, J. M., Delgado, J. M. & Power, C. Crystal and phonon structure of ZnSiP2, a II-IV-V2 semiconducting compound. Mater. Sci. Eng. B 177, 1465–1469 (2012).10.1016/j.mseb.2011.12.046 ↗
32. Bernard, J. E. & Zunger, A. Ordered-vacancy-compound semiconductors: pseudocubic CdIn2Se4. Phys. Rev. B 37, 6835–6856 (1988).10.1103/PhysRevB.37.6835 ↗
33. Zunger, A. Order-disorder transformation in ternary tetrahedral semiconductors. Appl. Phys. Lett. 50, 164–166 (1987).10.1063/1.97649 ↗
34. Burlakov, I. I., Raptis, Y., Ursaki, V. V., Anastassakis, E. & Tiginyanu, I. M. Order-disorder phase transition in CdAl2S4 under hydrostatic pressure. Solid State Commun. 101, 377–381 (1997).10.1016/S0038-1098(96)00602-3 ↗
35. Werthamer, N. R., Helfand, E. & Hohenberg, P. C. Temperature and purity dependence of the superconducting critical field, Hc2. III. electron spin and spin-orbit effects. Phys. Rev. 147, 295–302 (1966).10.1103/PhysRev.147.295 ↗
36. Tafti, F. F. et al. Sudden reversal in the pressure dependence of Tc in the iron-based superconductor KFe2As2. Nat. Phys. 9, 349–352 (2013).10.1038/nphys2617 ↗
37. Tafti, F. F. et al. Sudden reversal in the pressure dependence of Tc in the iron-based superconductor CsFe2As2: a possible link between inelastic scattering and pairing symmetry. Phys. Rev. B 89, 134502 (2014).10.1103/PhysRevB.89.134502 ↗
38. Pang, G. M. et al. Nodeless superconductivity in noncentrosymmetric PbTaSe2 single crystals. Phys. Rev. B 93, 060506(R) (2016).10.1103/PhysRevB.93.060506 ↗
39. Yesudhas, N. Y. S. et al. Origin of superconductivity and giant phonon softening in TlInTe2 under pressure. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.09804 (2020).