Establishment of Structural and Elastic Properties of Titanate Compounds Based on Pb, Sn and Ge by First-Principles Calculation

Structural, electronic, and optical properties of PbTiO3, SnTiO3, and GeTiO3 tetragonals (P4mm, 99 space group) were investigated using density functional theory as implemented in pseudo-potential plane wave in CASTEP computer code. The calculated equilibrium lattice parameter, electronic band structure, and optical properties for PbTiO3 (reference compound) are in good agreement with the available experiment data. The result also shows that GeTiO3 has a higher tetragonality (c/a=1.18) compared with SnTiO3 (c/a=1.15) and PbTiO3 (c/a=1.05). Calculations of the elastic constants of PbTiO3, SnTiO3, and GeTiO3 tetragonals show that they are mechanically stable. The electronic band structure shows that PbTiO3 has higher indirect band gap at X-G compared with SnTiO3 and GeTiO3, as explained in detail by the optical properties of ATiO3 (A=Pb, Sn, Ge) through the refractive index and absorption coefficient.