Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2011
The electronic structure and high pressure structural phase transition in thorium antimonide have been investigated using the tight binding LMTO method. We have calculated the total energies by reducing the cell volume for NaCl as well as CsCl structures using TBLMTO method. The total energy calculations reveal that ThSb undergoes a structural transition from NaCl to CsCl structure at 78 kbar. The calculated value of equilibrium cell volume and the cell volume at which phase transition occurs are found to have a good agreement with the experimental results.