AAsSe(2) (A = Li, Na) have been identified as a new class of polar direct-band gap semiconductors. These I-V-VI(2) ternary alkali-metal chalcoarsenates have infinite single chains of (1/infinity)[AsQ(2)(-)] derived from corner-sharing pyramidal AsQ(3) units with stereochemically active lone pairs of electrons on arsenic. The conformations and packing of the chains depend on the structure-directing alkali metals. This results in at least four different structural types for the Li(1-x)Na(x)AsSe(2) stoichiometry (alpha-LiAsSe(2), beta-LiAsSe(2), gamma-NaAsSe(2), and delta-NaAsSe(2)). Single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies showed an average cubic NaCl-type structure for alpha-LiAsSe(2), which was further demonstrated to be locally distorted by pair distribution function (PDF) analysis. The beta and gamma forms have polar structures built of different (1/infinity)[AsSe(2)(-)] chain conformations, whereas the delta form has nonpolar packing. A wide range of direct band gaps are observed, depending on composition: namely, 1.11 eV for alpha-LiAsSe(2), 1.60 eV for LiAsS(2), 1.75 eV for gamma-NaAsSe(2), 2.23 eV for NaAsS(2). The AAsQ(2) materials are soluble in common solvents such as methanol, which makes them promising candidates for solution processing. Band structure calculations performed with the highly precise screened-exchange sX-LDA FLAPW method confirm the direct-gap nature and agree well with experiment. The polar gamma-NaAsSe(2) shows very large nonlinear optical (NLO) second harmonic generation (SHG) response in the wavelength range of 600-950 nm. The theoretical studies confirm the experimental results and show that gamma-NaAsSe(2) has the highest static SHG coefficient known to date, 337.9 pm/V, among materials with band gaps larger than 1.0 eV.

The strongly anisotropic thioarsenates A(3)Ta(2)AsS(11) are stabilized in a polysulfide flux. All compounds contain the same parallel (1)/(infinity)[Ta(2)AsS(11)(3-)] polymeric anionic chains, but the size of the alkali-metals has a profound effect on the packing of the chains. The K(+) or Rb(+) favor noncentrosymmetric packing of the chains, whereas the larger Cs(+) favors the centrosymmetric packing. The chains feature the combination of two asymmetric units [Ta(2)S(11)] and [AsS(3)] and exhibit strong nonlinear optical (NLO) second harmonic generation (SHG) response. Polycrystalline samples exhibit is up to approximately 15 times stronger SHG than that of commercially used AgGaSe(2).

Bridging the gap: Li1−xNaxAsS2 (x=0–1) species are found to be a new class of polar direct‐gap semiconductors, which display a strong second harmonic generator (SHG) response. The anomalous band‐gap trend and their direct‐band‐gap nature was studied by calculations. The 1.6 eV direct energy gap of LiAsS2 coupled with its high solubility makes it promising as an efficient light harvesting component in solar cells.