Pressure-engineered optical properties and emergent superconductivity in chalcopyrite semiconductor ZnSiP2

Abstract Chalcopyrite II-IV-V 2 semiconductors are promising materials in nonlinear optical, optoelectronic, and photovoltaic applications. In this work, pressure-tailored optical properties as well pressure-driven emergent superconductivity chalcopyrite ZnSiP reported via photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy electrical transport experiments. During compression, the PL peak energy exhibits a plateau between 1.4 8.7 GPa, which is accompanied by piezochromic transition correlated with progressive development of cation disorder. Upon further compression across phase from tetragonal to cubic rock-salt structure, critical temperature T c ~ 8.2 K emerges immediately. decreases range 24.6–37.1 GPa but inversely increases at higher pressures, thereby exhibiting an unusual V-shaped superconducting diagram. These findings present vivid structure–property relationships, not only offer important clues optimize electronic properties, also provide new way use switch different functionalities.