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Abstract:We report first principles calculations of the structural, electronic, elastic and vibrational properties of the semiconducting orthorhombic ZnSb compound. We study also the intrinsic point defects in order to eventually improve the thermoelectric properties of this already very promising thermoelectric material.Concerning the electronic properties, in addition to the band structure, we show that the Zn (Sb) crystallographically equivalent atoms are not exactly equivalent from the electronic point of view. Lattice dynamics, elastic and thermodynamic properties are found to be in good agreement with the experiments and they confirm the non equivalency of the zinc and antimony atoms from the vibrational point of view. The calculated elastic properties show a relatively weak anisotropy and the hardest direction is the y direction. We observe the presence of low energy modes involving both Zn and Sb atoms at about 5-6 meV, similarly to what has been found in Zn 4 Sb 3 and we suggest that the interactions of these modes with acoustic phonons could explain the relatively low thermal conductivity of ZnSb. Zinc vacancies are the most stable defects and this explains the intrinsic p-type conductivity of ZnSb.

We present a study of the thermodynamic and physical properties of Ta 5 Si 3 compounds by means of density functional theory based calculations. Among the three different structures (D8 m , D8 l , D8 8 ), the D8 l structure (Cr 5 B 3 -prototype) is the low temperature phase with a high formation enthalpy of -449.20kJ/mol, the D8 m structure (W 5 Si 3 -prototype) is the high temperature phase with a formation enthalpy of -419.36kJ/mol, and the D8 8 structure (Mn 5 Si 3 -prototype) is a metastable phase. The optimized lattice constants of the different Ta 5 Si 3 compounds are also in good agreement with the experimental data. The electronic density of states (DOS) and the bonding charge density have also been calculated to elucidate the bonding mechanism in these compounds and the results indicate that bonding is mostly of covalent nature.The elastic constants of the D8 m and D8 l structures have been calculated together with the different moduli. Finally, by using a quasiharmonic Debye model, the Debye temperature, the heat capacity, the coefficient of thermal expansion and the Grüneisen parameter have also been obtained in the present work. The transformation temperature (2303.7K) between the D8 m and the D8 l structures has been predicted by means of the Gibbs energy, and this predicted temperature (2303.7K) is close to the experimental value (2433.5K).

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