Investigation of electro-optical properties of InSb under the influence of spin-orbit interaction at room temperature

To investigate the electro-optical properties of indium antimonide (InSb) for photo-voltaic applications, we performed first principles calculations using density functional theory (DFT). Our DFT calculations are based on full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method implemented by WIEN2K code. These calculations are carried out using generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and Tran Blaha modified Becke Johnson (TB-mBJ) approximation for exchange co-relation potential. All the calculations are performed with and without the addition of spin-orbit interaction (SOI) to GGA and TB-mBJ potentials. Addition of SOI gives the results very close to their experimental values and makes the calculations independent of k-points consideration. All the results are calculated by considering the temperature as high as 300 K. To the best of our knowledge, all the previously published theoretical results were calculated at 0 K and no such results have been reported at 300 K. In this article, we are reporting band structure, density of states (DOS) and the band gap dependent optical properties of InSb. The calculated direct band gap is 0.17 eV, refractive index is 3.79 and extinction coefficient as 3.22. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.