MgZnO barriers are commonly applied to passivate wurtzite ZnO films to enhance electron mobility, while the Mg mole fraction x is usually controlled below 0.4 to avoid phase separation. Few theoretical analyses have focused on electron mobility at large x since the phase separation leads to a complex scattering mechanism. This work investigates the effects of asymmetric MgZnO barriers on electron mobility, which is one source of complexity. Four asymmetric quantum wells simultaneously contribute to the electron mobility in proportions when the wurtzite and rock salt coexist in the mixed-phase MgZnO barriers with large Mg mole fractions. Besides, built-in electric fields also contribute to the asymmetry by tilting the bands. The polar optical phonon-limited electron mobility in asymmetric Mg xZn1− xO/ZnO/Mg0.45Zn0.55O quantum wells is simulated between 176 and 333 cm2/V s as x ranges from 0.1 to 1. Our calculations show that confined optical phonons play a leading role in the quantum well with wurtzite barriers. Interface optical phonons are primary in the wells with rock salt barriers since most electrons are pushed close to the interface by the strong built-in electric field. The results indicate that wurtzite barriers are more favorable to achieving stable high mobility above 238 cm2/V s as the Mg mole fraction ranges from 0.14 to 0.33, which is commonly applied in practice.

The whole optical phonon spectrum of quasiconfined (CO), propagating (PR), and interface (IF) modes in wurtzite III-nitride cylindrical core-multishell nanowires (CMSNWs) is obtained based on the dielectric continuum and Loudon's uniaxial crystal models considering the ternary mixed crystal effect. A transfer matrix method calculation shows that there are six types of CO modes and one type of PR mode in a three-layered CMSNW. For any fixed component, only permitted types of CO modes exist in allowable frequency regions, while the PR modes appear only when components are almost the same in all layers, originating from anisotropic optical phonons in bulk wurtzite nitride. The whole spectrum reveals two mode transformations: one is between PR and IF modes by adjusting components in different layers; the other is continuous among five possible modes at any fixed component with connected frequency regions. The dispersion relations and corresponding electrostatic potentials of the whole optical phonon spectrum are helpful to understand the frequency-dependent electron–phonon interaction in the future. The analysis process can be extended to arbitrary nitride cylindrical CMSNWs for the modulation of optical phonon related properties.