Exciton-phonon coupling in the UV absorption and emission spectra of bulk hexagonal boron nitride

TL;DR

This paper introduces an  ab initio method to calculate phonon-assisted optical spectra considering strong excitonic effects, applied to bulk hexagonal boron nitride, explaining its UV luminescence.

Contribution

The paper develops a novel  computational approach to analyze exciton-phonon interactions in materials with strong excitonic effects.

Findings

Explains UV luminescence in hexagonal BN.

Identifies exciton-phonon coupling channels.

Matches recent experimental results.

Abstract

We present an \textit{ab initio} method to calculate phonon-assisted absorption and emission spectra in the presence of strong excitonic effects. We apply the method to bulk hexagonal BN which has an indirect band gap and is known for its strong luminescence in the UV range. We first analyse the excitons at the wave vector $\overline{q}$ of the indirect gap. The coupling of these excitons with the various phonon modes at $\overline{q}$ is expressed in terms of a product of the mean square displacement of the atoms and the second derivative of the optical response function with respect to atomic displacement along the phonon eigenvectors. The derivatives are calculated numerically with a finite difference scheme in a supercell commensurate with $\overline{q}$. We use detailed balance arguments to obtain the intensity ratio between emission and absorption processes. Our results explain recent luminescence experiments and reveal the exciton-phonon coupling channels responsible for the emission lines.