The electron effective mass at the bottom of the GaNAs conduction band

Abstract

We determined the electron effective mass, m * e , from the photoluminescence (PL) of GaN x As 1−x /GaAs single quantum wells. The energy of the interband optical transitions is analysed within the frame of the band anti-crossing model (BAC), which accounts for a highly nonparabolic nature of the GaNAs conduction band (CB). From the PL we found that m * e at the bottom of the CB in GaN x As 1−x /GaAs quantum wells (QWs) increases from 0.095m 0 to 0.12m 0 for x increasing from 0.009 to 0.04. We found that the BAC model for III-N-V QWs predicts a strong increase of m * e as a function of the electronic subband number. We analyse also m * e at the bottom of the bulk GaNAs CB using the linear-muffin-tin-orbital (LMTO) method adjusted by inclusion of external potentials to account properly for energy gaps. The effective mass dependence obtained from LMTO calculations reproduces the experimental results. The nature of the nitrogen related A 1 symmetry state, which enters in the BAC model, and similarities of this state with the Ga dangling bond state are discussed.

Nitrogen composition dependence of electron effective mass inGaAs1−xNx

“…Earlier studies have shown that the electron mobility of ͑In͒GaAs 1−x N x decreases significantly with N composition, x, [1][2][3][4][5][6] presumed to be partly due to the influence of N incorporation on the effective mass, m ‫ء‬ . 3,4,7,8 There have been conflicting experimental 3,7-9 and theoretical 8,10,11 reports on the x and temperature, T, dependences of m ‫ء‬ . For x Ͻ 0.005, m ‫ء‬ was reported to either decrease 4 or rapidly increase 3,7,9 with increasing x.…”

Contactless electroreflectance of GaInNAsSb∕GaAs single quantum wells with indium content of 8%–32%

“…The electron effective mass in dilute-nitride QWs has been predicted by theories [28][29][30][31][32] and observed experimentally 25,[33][34][35][36][37] to be larger than those containing materials without nitrogen. In the case of GaNAs, there is an agreement that while the electron effective mass is increased with the presence of nitrogen, it was not as high as suggested by initial reports.…”

First principles study of structural, electronic and optical properties of indium gallium nitride arsenide lattice matched to gallium arsenide

“…In addition, the two formed sub-bands are highly non-parabolic. However, limiting our focus around the critical point Γ, it is listed that the effective mass in the case of diluted nitrogen becomes much larger (about 2-fold) than in GaAs as the nitrogen is incorporated [63]. …”