Band anticrossing effects in highly mismatched semiconductor alloys
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
The first five chapters of this thesis focus on studies of band anticrossing (BAC) effects in highly electronegativity- mismatched semiconductor alloys. The concept of bandgap bowing has been used to describe the deviation of the alloy bandgap from a linear interpolation. Bowing parameters as large as 2.5 eV (for ZnSTe) and close to zero (for AlGaAs and ZnSSe) have been observed experimentally. Recent advances in thin film deposition techniques have allowed the growth of semiconductor alloys composed of significantly different constituents with ever- improving crystalline quality (e.g., GaAs1-xNx and GaP1-xNx with x ~< 0.05). These alloys exhibit many novel and interesting properties including, in particular, a giant bandgap bowing (bowing parameters > 14 eV). A band anticrossing model has been developed to explain these properties. The model shows that the predominant bowing mechanism in these systems is driven by the anticrossing interaction between the localized level associated with the minority component and the band states of the host. In this thesis I discuss my studies of the BAC effects in these highly mismatched semiconductors. It will be shown that the results of the physically intuitive BAC model can be derived from the Hamiltonian of the many-impurity Anderson model. The band restructuring caused by the BAC interaction is responsible for a series of experimental observations such as a large bandgap reduction, an enhancement of the electron effective mass, and a decrease in the pressure coefficient of the fundamental gap energy. Results of further experimental investigations of the optical properties of quantum wells based on these materials will be also presented. It will be shown that the BAC interaction occurs not only between localized states and conduction band states at the Brillouin zone center, but also exists over all of k-space. Finally, taking ZnSTe and ZnSeTe as examples, I show that BAC also occurs between localized states and the valence band states. Soft x-ray fluorescence experiments provide direct evidence of the BAC interaction in these systems. In the final chapter of the thesis, I describe and summarize my studies of optical properties of wurtzite InN and related alloys. Early studies performed on InN films grown by sputtering techniques suggested a direct bandgap of ~1.9 eV for this semiconductor. Very recently, high-quality InN films with much higher mobility have become available by using the molecular beam epitaxy growth method. Optical experiments carried out on these samples reveal a narrow bandgap for InN of 0.77 eV, much lower than the previously accepted value. Optical properties of InGaN and InAlN ternaries on the In rich side have also been characterized and are found to be consistent with the narrow bandgap of InN. The bandgap bowing parameters in these alloys were determined. In the context of these findings, the bandgap energies of InGaN and InAlN were found to cover a wide spectral range from the infrared for InN to the ultraviolet for GaN and deep ultraviolet for AlN. The significance of this work is rooted in many important applications of nitride semiconductors in optoelectronics and solar energy conversion devices.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00098
- OSTI ID:
- 806122
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-51473; R&D Project: 513310; B& R KC0201030; TRN: US200303%%555
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: TH: Thesis (Ph.D.); Submitted to the University of California, Berkeley, CA (US); PBD: 9 Sep 2002
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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