Pseudopotential bandstructure calculations for β-AgI and γ-AgI

The pseudopotential calculations of Cohen and Bergstresser on the zinc-blende structures of Sn, InSb and CdTe, are extended to the I–VII compound, AgI. The resulting bandstructure for the metastable phase with the zinc-blende structure, denoted γ-AgI, is found to be in good agreement with that derived by a previous tight-binding calculation.The same pseudopotential form factors are used to calculate the bandstructure for β-AgI which is the stable low temperature phase having the wurtzite structure. This bandstructure is shown to be consistent with the predictions of the earlier tight-binding analysis.Taken together, these bandstructures and pseudopotential form factors provide a suitable basis for calculating the electronic properties of these two silver iodide polytypes.