Two Dimensional Effective Electron Mass at the Fermi Level in Quantum Wells of III–V, Ternary and Quaternary Semiconductors

Abstract

In this paper we study the influence of strong electric field on the two dimensional (2D)effective electron mass (EEM) at the Fermi level in quantum wells of III-V, ternary and quaternary semiconductors within the framework of k x p formalism by formulating a new 2D electron energy spectrum. It appears taking quantum wells of InSb, InAs, Hg(1-x)Cd(x)Te and In(1-x)Ga(x)As(1-y)P(y) lattice matched to InP as examples that the EEM increases with decreasing film thickness, increasing electric field and increases with increasing surface electron concentration exhibiting spikey oscillations because of the crossing over of the Fermi level by the quantized level in quantum wells and the quantized oscillation occurs when the Fermi energy touches the sub-band energy. The electric field makes the mass quantum number dependent and the oscillatory mass introduces quantum number dependent mass anisotropy in addition to energy. The EEM increases with decreasing alloy composition where the variations are totally band structure dependent. Under certain limiting conditions all the results for all the cases get simplified into the well-known parabolic energy bands and thus confirming the compatibility test. The content of this paper finds three applications in the fields of nano-science and technology.