Hybrid functional investigation of band offsets for non-polar, Ga-polar and Al-polar interfaces in GaN/AlN heterojunction

Abstract

We investigated band alignment of non-polar and polar GaN/AlN heterojunction by using density functional theory with the Heyd–Scuseria–Ernzerhof hybrid functional. In the heterojunction model, AlN was considered as a substrate while strained GaN was grown on top. The deformation potential of GaN, were included to calculate the unstrained band offsets. For polar heterojunction, the artificial effects from an undesired interface was removed by using vacuum insertion and dipole correction. We found that the unstrained valence band offsets (VBOs) are 0.92 eV, 1.23 eV and 1.09 eV for non-polar, Ga-polar and Al-polar interfaces respectively. The variation of VBOs can be explained from the difference in both deformation and dipole potential at the interfaces. Moreover, the additional energy shift of polar VBO from non-polar VBO were extracted as 0.33 eV from considering the effect of spontaneous polarization.