Electronic structures of the zinc-blende GaN/Ga 1− xAl xN compressively strained superlattices and quantum wells

Abstract

The electronic structures of the zinc-blende GaN/Ga 0.85Al 0.15N compressively strained superlattices and quantum wells are investigated using a 6×6 Hamiltonian model (including the heavy hole, light hole and spin-orbit splitting band). The energy bands, wavefunctions and optical transition matrix elements are calculated. It is found that the light hole couples with the spin-orbit splitting state even at the k=0 point, resulting in the hybrid states. The heavy hole remains a pure heavy hole state at k=0. The optical transitions from the hybrid valence states to the conduction states are determined by the transitions of the light hole and spin-orbit splitting states to the conduction states. The transitions from the heavy hole, light hole and spin-orbit splitting states to the conduction states obey the selection rule Δ n=0. The band structures obtained in this work will be valuable in designing GaN/GaAlN based optoelectronic devices.