Structural Chemistry and Excellent Nonlinear Optical Properties of a Series of Ternary Selenides GaInSe.

Novel nonlinear optical (NLO) materials possessing simple chemical compositions and facile syntheses are competitive when considering their practical application. Here, a series of ternary selenides GaInSe ( = 0.07, 0.38, 0.45, and 0.81) that crystallize in a chiral 6 structure are obtained by melting Ga, In, and Se elements. Their three-dimensional structures are built by (Ga/In)Se tetrahedra and InSe trigonal bipyramids. The hexagonal modification's phase stability is analyzed by energy calculation, and their optical band gaps are determined to be 1.72-1.99 eV. They exhibit large NLO responses that are 1.41-1.64 times that of the benchmark AgGaS. The results of density functional theory calculations suggest that introduction of Ga onto the In site in (InSe) units can form a deformed tetrahedron with more distortion in the structure, and the (InSe) units contribute a large amount of birefringence to the structure. This work is the first to investigate the ternary chalcogenides MQ (M = Ga or In; Q = S or Se) as new types of infrared NLO crystals with excellent performances, which will stimulate more interest in those possessing simple compositions and outstanding performances.