Phonon vibrational frequencies and elastic properties of solid SrFCl. An ab initio study

The phonon vibrational frequencies, electronic and elastic properties of SrFCl, one of the members of the alkaline-earth fluorohalide family crystallizing with the PbFCl-type structure, have been investigated, for the first time, at the ab initio level, by using the periodic CRYSTAL program. Both Hartree-Fock (HF) and density functional theory (DFT) Hamiltonians have been used, with the latter in its local density, gradient-corrected (PW91), and hybrid (B3LYP) versions. The structural and elastic properties are in good agreement with experiment, with the exception of those calculated within the local density approximation, which were found to be systematically under-estimated (distances) or over-estimated (elastic properties). As regards the phonon frequencies, B3LYP and PW91 provide excellent results, the mean absolute difference with respect to the experimental Raman data being 4.1% and 3.6%, respectively.