Temperature-Dependent Full Spectrum Optical Responses of Semiconductors from First Principles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a first-principles method to predict the full-spectrum optical responses of semiconductors across temperatures, accounting for electronic and phononic effects from ultraviolet to mid-infrared.

Contribution

It presents a novel parallel approach combining electronic and phononic calculations from first principles to accurately model temperature-dependent optical responses.

Findings

Refractive index of CeO₂ matches experimental data

Method captures temperature effects on optical spectra

Includes four-phonon scattering and phonon renormalization

Abstract

From ultraviolet to mid-infrared region, light-matter interaction mechanisms in semiconductors progressively shift from electronic transitions to phononic resonances and are affected by temperature. Here, we present a parallel temperature-dependent treatment of both electrons and phonons entirely from first principles, enabling the prediction of full-spectrum optical responses. At elevated temperatures, $\textit{ab initio}$ molecular dynamics is employed to find thermal perturbations to electronic structures and construct effective force constants describing potential landscape. Four-phonon scattering and phonon renormalization are included in an integrated manner in this approach. As a prototype ceramic material, cerium dioxide (CeO$_2$) is considered in this work. Our first-principles calculated refractive index of CeO$_2$ agrees well with measured data from literature and our own temperature-dependent ellipsometer experiment.