Electronic structure of a thermoelectric material: CsBi4Te6 Original Research Article

We have calculated the electronic structure of CsBi4Te6 by means of first-principles self-consistent total-energy calculations within the local-density approximation using the full-potential linear-muffin-tin-orbital method. From our calculated electronic structure we have calculated the frequency dependent dielectric function. Our calculations shows that CsBi4Te6 a semiconductor with a band gap of 0.3 eV. The calculated dielectric function is very anisotropic. Our calculated density of state support the recent experiment of Chung et al. [Science 287 (2000) 1024] that CsBi4Te6 is a high performance thermoelectric material for low temperature applications.