Theoretical and experimental study of interband optical transitions in semiconducting iron disilicide

Abstract

The interband optical spectra of the semiconducting β phase of iron disilicide (β-FeSi2) were investigated in the energy range from 0.5 to 5.0 eV. The dielectric function and other optical functions were deduced from ellipsometric experiments and calculated within the local-density approximation by using the semirelativistic linear muffin-tin orbital method. Reasonable agreement between the calculated and measured data has been obtained.