Optical absorption spectrum and electronic structure of multiferroic hexagonal YMnO 3 compound

Abstract Optical absorption (OA) spectrum and electronic structure of the hexagonal YMnO 3 compound have been investigated by employment of the first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. The calculations were performed upon the ferroelectric structure of the YMnO 3 , by testing various approximations of the exchange-correlation effects between the Mn d-electrons and considering two types of magnetic ordering of the Mn sub-lattice: (1) collinear anti-ferromagnetic order of the G-type and (2) non-collinear antiferromagnetic order that correspond to magnetic space group P6 3 . The results demonstrate that satisfactory agreement between the theoretical and the experimental OA spectrum can be achieved only if both non-collinear anti-ferromagnetic order of the Mn spins and strong correlations between the Mn d-electrons are taken into account. The latter is found to be best described by effective Hubbard parameter U eff = 2.55 eV. The principal features of the OA spectrum are interpreted in terms of calculated electronic structure. It is found that the most important, threshold 1.6 eV OA peak is generated by electron transitions from strongly hybridized occupied Mn d- and its neighboring in-plane O p-states to unoccupied Mn d-states. It is also concluded that the electronic gap (calculated as ∼1.1 eV) should be smaller than the optical one (∼1.6 eV).