Discovery of highly polarizable semiconductors <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>BaZr</mml:mi><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">S</mml:mi><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math> and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Ba</mml:mi><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Zr</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">S</mml:mi><mml:mn>7</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>
Stephen Filippone, Boyang Zhao, Shanyuan Niu, Nathan Z. Koocher, Daniel Silevitch, Ignasi Fina, James M. Rondinelli, Jayakanth Ravichandran, R. Jaramillo
Abstract
Few semiconductors exhibit both strong optical response and large dielectric polarizability without an accompanying phase transition. In this paper, the authors introduce complex chalcogenides in the Ba-Zr-S system with perovskite and Ruddlesden-Popper structures as a new family of highly polarizable semiconductors, with low-frequency dielectric constant exceeding the highest reported values for semiconductors with band gap in the NIR-VIS, including halide perovskites. This family of complex chalcogenide semiconductors therefore combines strong optical absorption, excellent environmental stability, and strong dielectric response, and consists of abundant and nontoxic elements. It is an open question whether the strong dielectric polarizability reported here is related to the slow rates of nonradiative energy loss reported previously in Ba${}_{3}$Zr${}_{2}$S${}_{7}$.