Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lecture 7, Modification of bandstructures Outline Properties of conduction and valence bandedge states Bandstructure modification

on by Alloying Heterostructure types Bandstructure modification by heterostructures Bandstructure modification by strain

Part of the material and some figures are from: 1) J. Singh, Semiconductor Optoelectronics, McGraw Hill Int. Ed., Singapore, 1995, 2) J.H.Davies,The Physics of low dimensional semiconductors, Cambridge University Press, NY, 1998. Sebastian Lourdudoss

Properties of conduction and valence bandedge states

Bloch theorem: Wave function of electron = plane wave part + a periodic central cell part Solution of the proper Schrdinger Schr equation yields: Energy of the electron= f(k) & cell part f(k) * Cell part character determines selection rules for photonphotonelectron interaction in optoelectronic devices * Valence bands and conduction bands in semiconductors composed of s and p orbitals * Therefore cell part of the wave function made up of s and p states

2 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Properties of conduction and valence bandedge states

Band structure of the conduction bands Direct: E(k) = Ec + h2k2/2m* Indirect: E(k) = Ec + h2kl2/2ml*+ h2kt2/2mt* Band structure of the valence bands E(k) = (- h2/2m0) {Ak2 [Bk4 + C(kx2 ky2 + ky2 kz2 + kz2 kx2 )]1/2} A, B, C = dimensionless parameters Upper sign => Heavy hole states Lower sign => Light hole states p-type states

3 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Band structure modification by alloying

Mixture of two or more binaries (e.g., A and B) = alloys (e.g., AxB1-x) with different bandgaps and lattice constants Lattice constant of the alloy = linear combination of the lattice constants of binaries (called Vegards law); aalloy = xaA + (1-x)aB Alloy Bandgap = linear combination of bandgap of the binaries (Virtual Crystal Approximation) Egalloy = xEgA + (1-x)EgB Not always true - A bowing factor is often involved Now there are rigorous equations for a and Eg for several alloy semiconductors, e.g. for GaxIn1-xAsyP1-y:
a(x,y) = xyaGaAs + x(1-y)aGaP + (1-x)yaInAs + (1-x)(1-y)aInP Eg(x,y) = 1.35 + 0.668x 1.072y + 0.758x2 + 0.078y2 0.069xy 0.322x2y + 0.03xy2

4 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Band structure modification by alloying Change of as, Egs and bandstructures

5 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Band structure modification by heterostructures - Concept of bandoffsets or bandgap discontinuity

Anderson model (electron affinity model):

EC = e(A - B) EV = Eg - EC
(chi) = electron affinity There are several other models and experimental methods.

6 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Band structure modification by heterostructures (types I, II and III)

Type I (straddling alignment), e.g. InGaAs/ InP: Sandwich traps both electrons and holes Type II (staggered alignment), e.g. InP/InAlAs: Sandwich favours electrons in InP but holes in InAlAs Type III (broken-gap alignment) e.g., InAs/GaSb: Conduction band of InAs overlaps with the valence band of GaSb. Consequence: Spontaneous transfer of electrons and holes until the built-in field resists (as in p-n diode)
Type III

Type I

Type II

7 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Construction of band diagrams in heterostructures

8 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Bandgap engineering by strain

Strain in mismatched materials improves certain properties:

Example: In0.53Ga0.47As and In0,52Al0.48As lattice matched to InP. In electronic applications large EC and small m* for electrons in In0.53Ga0.47As is exploited. But if In in In0.53Ga0.47As is increased to above 0.53, both EC and m* are improved at the cost of strain! Strain broadens the range of materials available for tuning the properties of interest such as band offsets and effective masses Stain has strong effects on valence band => strong tool for bandgap engineering Benefits of strain may allow to use desired layers on convenient but usually mismatched substrates

9 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Strain
Strain is allowed only upto a particular thickness (critical thickness) Critical thickness as/2||

Strain, = (asubstrte- alayer)/alayer xx = yy = ; zz = -2C12/C11 C11 and C12 are the force constants (in Pa) of the material

If the critical thickness is exceeded, defects are generated Strained layer has the same lattice constant as the substrate on the plane of the substrate but different along the growth direction Compressive strain and tensile strain

10 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Strain in Eg(x,y) a (x,y) diagram for GaxIn1-xAsyP1-y

Constant lattice constant lines
InAs 3.2 % cs hh eg: 2861 nm lh eg: 1834 nm 2%cs 1 1%cs lm 1%ts 2%ts GaAs 3.67 % ts hh eg: 1072 nm lh eg: 1349 nm

0.9

y(Arsenic)

0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5

lm = lattice matched

1500 nm 1400 nm 1300 nm

0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 x(Gallium) 0.8 1 GaP 7.1 % ts hh eg: 597 nm lh eg: 740 nm

Constant bandgap lines

1200 nm 1100 nm 1000 nm InP eg: 918 nm

11 Sebastian Lourdudoss

 Wave functions at the top of the valence band has the symmetry of p orbitals Wavefunctions overlap strongly in the z- direction less in xy plane = free movement of e-s in the z-direction, less free in the x- and y- directions => Energy of holes in z-direction increases with k faster than in the x and y-directions The other two p-orbitals (px and py) behave in a similar manner To sum up the behaviour, we have one light band and two degenerate heavy bands

12 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Band structure modification due to strain

Strain affects pz orbital the most, i.e., along the z-direction or growth direction Compression in xy plane, case (c) = energy of pz falls => Top of the valence band arise from px and py and hence these are heavy along z but light along x and y => Implication: Mobility in the plane of the junction is favoured due to lighter hole mass Tension in xy plane, case (a) = energy of pz increases => Top of the valence bands arise from pz and hence these are light along z but heavy along x and y => Implication: Mobility in the plane of the junction determined by heavier hole mass Sebastian Lourdudoss Strain, = (asubstrte- alayer)/alayer xx = yy = ; zz = -2C12/C11

k = kx, ky => growth plane 13 kz = growth direction

Band structure modification due to strain

For QW: m*h (growth direction) determines the confinement energy Confinement energy of electron (hole) = Energy between the first quantisation level of electron (hole) to the conduction (valence) band edge of the barrier layer and it depends upon the band offset (it also depends on well composition, well thickness and barrier composition) m*h (in-plane) determines the density of states E.g.: compressive InGaAs/GaAs : m*h (in-plane) = 0.155 m0 For bulk: m*h (in-plane) = 0.5 m0

14 Sebastian Lourdudoss

Tangible effect on laser threshold

Lasers have higher threshold if electron effective mass differs too much from the effective hole mass Ref.: Yablonovitch and Kane, J. Lightwave Tech., vol. 6, no. 8, pp. 1292-1299, 1988. Strained In0.25Ga0.75 As QW of thickness 5 nm on GaAs makes the hole effective mass = electron effective mass => decrease in threshold density by more than a factor of two Ref.: J.J.Coleman, Strained layer InGaAs Quantum-Well Heterostructure lasers, IEEE J. Seleted Topics in Quantum Electronics, vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 1008-1013, 2000.
15 Sebastian Lourdudoss