Si₃AlP: A New Promising Material for Solar Cell Absorber

First-principles calculations were performed to study the structural and optoelectronic properties of the newly synthesized nonisovalent and lattice-matched (Si₂)_0.6(AlP)_0.4 alloy (Watkins, T.; et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011, 133, 16212). We found that the most stable structure of Si₃AlP is a superlattice along the ⟨111⟩ direction with separated AlP and Si layers, which has a similar optical absorption spectrum to silicon. The ordered C1c1-Si₃AlP is found to be the most stable one among all structures with a basic unit of one P atom surrounded by three Si atoms and one Al atom, in agreement with experimental suggestions. We predict that C1c1-Si₃AlP has good optical properties, i.e., it has a larger fundamental band gap and a smaller direct band gap than Si; thus, it has much higher absorption in the visible light region. The calculated properties of Si₃AlP suggest that it is a promising candidate for improving the performance of the existing Si-based solar cells. The understanding on the stability and band structure engineering obtained in this study is general and can be applied for future study of other nonisovalent and lattice-matched semiconductor alloys.