Abstract: The electronic structures of CuS2, CuSe2 and CuTe2 with pyrite structures, within the framework the density-functional theory have been investigated. The calculated results explained the recent experimental results which show that there is no clear indication of strong electron correlations in the electronic properties of Cu pyrites, due to the dominant chalcogen p character rather than d characteristic of Cu at the Fermi level.

Key words: Ab initio calculations, Copper pyrites, Electronic structures