Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2011
The optical properties of SbBiI3 alloys have been investigated experimentally by absorption measurements and theoretically by a full-potential augmented plane wave (FPLAPW) method within the generalized gradient approximation. The fundamental band-gap energy of these alloys changes from BiI3- to SbI3-like with increasing percentage of Sb content. The calculated band-gap energies as well as the optical absorption were found to be in a very good qualitatively agreement with the experimental results. We present calculated density-of-states as well as the dielectric functions for evaluation of future experiments.