Insight into the structural, electronic, elastic and optical properties of the alkali hydride compounds, XH (X = Rb and Cs)

The equilibrium structural parameters, electronic and optical properties of the alkali hydrides RbH and CsH compounds in rock-salt (RS) and cesium chloride (CsCl) structures have been studied using the full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave (FP-LAPW) method. Wu and Cohen generalized gradient approximation (WC-GGA) was used for the exchange-correlation potential to compute the equilibrium structural parameters, such as the lattice constant (a0), the bulk modulus (B) and bulk modulus first order pressure derivative (B'). In addition to the WC-GGA, the modified Becke Johnson (mBJ) scheme has been also used to overcome the underestimation of the band gap energies. RbH and CsH compounds are found to be semiconductors (wide energy-band gap) using the WC-GGA method, while they are insulators using the mBJ-GGA method. Elastic constants, mechanical and thermodynamic properties were obtained by using the IRelast package. RbH and CsH compounds at ambient pressure are mechanically stable in RS and CsCl structures; they satisfy the Born mechanical stability criteria. Elastic constants (Cij), bulk modulus (B), shear modulus (S) and Debye temperatures (θD) of RbH and CsH compounds decrease as the alkali radius increases. The RS structure of these compounds at ambient conditions is mechanically stronger than CsCl structure. RbH and CsH in RS and CsCl structures are suitable as dielectric compounds. The wide direct energy band gap for these compounds make them promising compounds for optoelectronic UV device applications. Both RbH and CsH have a wide absorption region, on the other hand RbH absorption is very huge compared to the CsH absorption, RbH is an excellent absorbent material, maximum absorption regions are located in the middle ultraviolet (MUV) region and far ultraviolet (FUV) region. The absorption coefficient α (w), imaginary part of the dielectric constant ε2(w) and the extinction coefficient k(w) vary in the same way. The present calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental data, indicating the high accuracy of the performed calculations and reliability of the obtained results.