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[Display omitted] • New energy harvesting mechanisms as alternatives for traditional energy sources. • Solar and thermoelectric energy sources have gained much attention. • The future of Perovskite Solar cells and other relevant optoelectronic applications. • High figure of merits promising for thermoelectric applications. A thorough comparative study of lead free zirconate perovskite XZrO 3 (X = Ca, Sr, Ba) is carried out employing WIEN2k which is a density functional theory based code. A good agreement between reported synthesis and the theoretical results is observed. BaZrO 3 can be inferred as the most stable compound among XZrO 3 (X = Ca, Sr, Ba) as its ground state energy is lowest. According to the Burn-Haun criterion, the compounds under research are mechanically stable. The ductile nature, anisotropy, and reasonable resistance to deformation in response to external stress are observed. The semiconducting nature of the compounds is observed having indirect band gaps with values of 3.25 eV, 3.71 eV, and 3.80 eV. Exceptional optical absorption peaks for the investigated compounds can be observed in UV region (around 5.0 eV) which suggests their numerous optoelectronic applications within UV. XZrO 3 (X = Ca, Sr, Ba) are active optical materials as their refractive inrdex n (ω) occurs in the range of 1.0 and 2.0. Thermoelectric properties of these compounds are also very promising since the large Seebeck coefficients (∼2250–2700 μV/K), large power factor values (∼1011 W/mK2s), and figure of merits are very close to the unity are observed. The mechanical stability and ductility, and the appealing optical and thermoelectric properties of the examined compounds persuade us that these compounds may play a significant role for numerous industrial applications like solar cells, LEDs, sensors, thermoelectric generators and other energy conversion devices in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vacancy-ordered halide perovskites have gained considerable attention from researchers regarding non-traditional energy harvesting applications like solar cells and thermoelectric generators. However, in most of the reported cases, band gaps are larger (>3.5eV) consequently the efficiency of solar cells and thermoelectric generators becomes low. Currently, we studied non-toxic and stable vacancy-ordered halide perovskites Cs 2 GeCl 6 and tuned its band gap via substitutional doping of Pt (0, 25, 50, 75, and 100 %) using the first-principles approach. The band gap engineering strategy of Pt doping effectively decreased the band gaps (up to 2.50eV) hence, the more attractive optical and thermoelectric parameters are obtained for instance; high absorption coefficients (∼105 cm−1), low reflectivity (∼0.3–10 %), high optical conductivity (∼1015 sec−1), and large figure of merits (∼1). Based on these enhanced optical and thermoelectric performance parameters, the Pt doping strategy can be taken as an effective practice to tune the band gap significantly in order to stimulate the performance of future solar cells and thermoelectric generators. • New energy harvesting mechanisms as alternatives for traditional energy sources. • Optoelectronics and thermoelectricity have gained much attention. • The future of Perovskite thermoelectric generators. • High absorption coefficient double perovskite with reasonable band gaps. • High figure of merit promising for thermoelectric applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]