Localized Excitons and Exciton-Phonon Coupling in Antiferromagnetic AgCrP2S6

Abstract

AgCrP2S6 combines a low-symmetry thiophosphate framework with an antiferromagnetic Cr sublattice and nonmagnetic Ag sites, providing a setting in which covalency and magnetic localization compete in the low-energy optical response. We combine single-crystal x-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, lattice-dynamical calculations, and self-consistent vertex corrected Feynman diagrammatic many-body approaches to determine the structural, electronic, and excitonic properties of bulk AgCrP2S6. The material remains monoclinic between 100 and 300 K, with additional Ag-site disorder resolved at low temperature, and the optimized structure is dynamically stable. The many-body calculations yield a reduced quasiparticle gap relative to Cr trihalides, but the lowest excitons remain predominantly local: the calculated low-energy (~1.4 eV) excitation cluster is best described as a weakly bright, strongly anisotropic Frenkel exciton with dominant onsite d-d character and substantial ligand-assisted d-p admixture. Symmetry analysis in the C2h setting identifies this state as predominantly Bu and constrains its leading exciton-phonon coupling channels to Ag diagonal renormalization and Bg-mediated bright-dark mixing. These results place AgCrP2S6 in a localized excitonic regime in which the stronger p-d hybridization, relative to the more ionic Cr trihalides, narrows the quasiparticle gap, while the antiferromagnetic exchange and Ag-site dilution disfavor the intersite coherence associated with strongly delocalized low-energy excitons.