Lithium niobate dielectric function and second-order polarizability tensor from massively parallel ab initio calculations

The frequency-dependent dielectric function and the second-order polarizability tensor of ferroelectric LiNbO3 are calculated from first principles. The calculations are based on the electronic structure obtained from density-functional theory. The subsequent application of the GW approximation to account for quasiparticle effects and the solution of the Bethe–Salpeter equation yield a dielectric function for the stoichiometric material that slightly overestimates the absorption onset and the oscillator strength in comparison with experimental measurements. Calculations at the level of the independent-particle approximation indicate that these deficiencies are at least partially related to the neglect of intrinsic defects typical for the congruent material. The second-order polarizability calculated within the independent-particle approximation predicts strong nonlinear coefficients for photon energies above 1.5 eV. The comparison with measured data suggests that self-energy effects improve the agreement between experiment and theory. The intrinsic defects of congruent samples reduce the optical nonlinearities, in particular for the 21 and 31 tensor components, further improving the agreement with measured data.