Electronic Band Structure of Cuprous and Silver Halides: a Numerically Accurate All-Electron $GW$ Study

Abstract

Group IB metal halides (CuX and AgX, X=Cl, Br and I) are widely used in optoelectronic devices and photochemical catalysis due to their appropriate optical and electronic properties. First-principles calculations have confronted difficulties in accurately predicting their electronic band structures. Here we study CuX and AgX with many-body perturbation theory in the $GW$ approximation, implemented in the full-potential linearized augmented plane waves (FP-LAPW) framework. Comparing the quasi-particle band structures calculated with the default LAPW basis and the one extended by high-energy local orbitals (HLOs), denoted as LAPW+HLOs, we find that it is crucial to include HLOs to achieve sufficient numerical accuracy in $GW$ calculations of these materials. Using LAPW+HLOs in semi-local density functional approximation based $GW_0$ calculations leads to good agreement between theory and experiment for both band gaps and the splitting between metal (Cu or Ag) $d$ and X-$p$ states. It is indicated that quasi-particle band structures of CuX and AgX are crucially influenced by the numerical accuracy of $GW$ implementations, similar to what was found in ZnO [Jiang, H.; Blaha, P. Phys. Rev. B 2016, 93, 115203]. This work emphasizes the importance of numerical accuracy in the description of unoccupied states for quasi-particle band structure of materials with the $d^{10}$ electronic configuration.