Electronic structure of GaAs 1− xN x under pressure

Abstract

The electronic band structures of GaAs 1− x N x for x=0.009, 0.016, 0.031 and 0.062 are calculated ab initio using a supercell approach in connection with the full-potential linear muffin–tin orbital method. Corrections for the ‘LDA gap errors’ are made by adding external potentials which are adjusted to yield correct gaps in pure GaAs. Even small amounts of nitrogen modify significantly the conduction bands, which become strongly non-parabolic. The effective mass in the lowest conduction band thus exhibits strong k-vector dependence. Calculated variations of gaps and effective masses with x and externally applied pressure are presented and compared to a variety of experimental data. There are significant error bars on our results due to the use of the supercell approach. These are estimated by examining the effects of varying the geometrical arrangement of the N-atoms substituting As. However, the calculations show that the electron mass for x>0.009 is much larger than that of pure GaAs, and that it decreases with x.