Study of structural, elastic, electronic and optical properties of seven SrZrO3 phases: First-principles calculations

On the plane-wave ultrasoft pseudopotential technique based on the first-principles density functional theory (OFT), we calculated the structural, elastic, electronic and optical properties of the seven different phases of SrZrO3. The obtained ground-state properties are in good agreement with previous experiments and calculations, which indicate that the most stable phase is orthorhombic Pnma structure. Seven phases of SrZrO3 are mechanically stable with cubic, tetragonal and orthorhombic structures. The mechanical and thermodynamic properties have been obtained by using the Voigt-Reuss-Hill approach and Debye-Gruneisen model. The electronic structures and optical properties are obtained and compared with the available experimental and theoretical data. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.