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• Elastic, electronic, thermophysical, and optical properties of SnS compound investigated at different pressures. • SnS is mechanically stable in the pressure range 0–20 GPa, and undergoes brittle-ductile transition under pressure. • SnS is a direct band gap semiconductor in the ground state which becomes metallic under pressure. • SnS is a moderately machinable, soft, elastically anisotropic compound with low melting point. • The optical features of SnS are suitable for optoelectronic device applications. Pressure dependent physical properties of binary SnS compound have been studied using the density functional theory based methodology. The computed elastic constants reveal that SnS is stable mechanically and is brittle under ambient conditions. With increasing pressure, the compound becomes ductile. The Poisson's ratio and Cauchy pressure also indicate brittle-ductile transition when pressure increases. The hardness of SnS increases significantly with pressure. The compound possesses elastic anisotropy. The ground state electronic band structure is semiconducting with a small band gap. The band structure becomes metallic under pressure. The bands crossing the Fermi level become more and more dispersive with the increase in pressure while the electronic correlations decrease as pressure is raised. Both the Debye temperature and the phonon thermal conductivity of SnS increase sharply with pressure. The melting temperature of the compound is low. Mixed bonding characteristics are found with ionic and moderate covalent contributions. SnS is a good absorber of ultraviolet light. The reflectivity of the material increases with the increase in the pressure. The reflectivity is nonselective over a wide spectral range. The low energy refractive index is high. The low band gap energy under ambient conditions makes SnS suitable for photovoltaic applications. Non-selective and high reflectivity of SnS indicates that this compound can be used as a coating material to reduce solar heating. Unlike structural anisotropy, the optical anisotropy of SnS is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VO2 thin films have been successfully deposited on Pt(111)/Ti/SiO2/Si substrate by means of reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The IR reflectance of the as-prepared films exhibited a big contrast (∼50%) between the room temperature (25°C) and high temperature (100°C) owing to the fancy semiconductor-metal transition of VO2 thin film. Nevertheless, the initial resistance was very low and the transition cannot be triggered by the electrical field. Authors believe that the rather poor electrical switching behaviour was connected to the leakage current from the large grain boundaries and pores in the surface of the VO2 thin film. This study may provide insights for VO2 films grown on Pt(111)/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates and suggest that Pt layers can serve as a suitable substrate of VO2 films for optical switching devices but not for electrical switching ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]