Ab-initio calculations of the optical and magnetic properties of erbium silicide ErSi2 Original Research Article

We present a computational method for the ab-initio study of the optical and magnetic properties using the augmented plane wave plus local orbitals (APW+lo) method. The calculations are presented within the local density (LDA) approximation. Erbium silicide (ErSi2) is representative of the whole trivalent heavy-rare-earth disilicides family, and its study will provide information valid for all of them. Thus, the study of its optical and magnetic properties is very important, especially for the calculation of magneto-optical quantities. In this paper the optical and magnetic properties are well described. Up to now no theoretical study on optical and magnetic properties of ErSi2 is available in the literature. We report theoretical calculations of the reel and imaginary parts of the dielectric function (DF), the refractive index and the extinction coefficient, the spectra of the reflectivity, the absorption coefficient, the energy-loss function (ELF), and the magnetic moments.