Pressure-dependent bandgap study of MBE grown {CdO/MgO} short period SLs using diamond anvil cell

Abstract

Semiconductor superlattices (SLs) have found widespread applications in electronic industries. In this work, a short-period SL structure composed of CdO and MgO layers was grown using a plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy technique. The optical property of the SLs was investigated by absorption measurement at room temperature. The ambient-pressure direct bandgap was found to be 2.76 eV. The pressure dependence of fundamental bandgap has been studied using a diamond anvil cell technique. It has been found that the band-to-band transition shifts toward higher energy with an applied pressure. The bandgap of SLs was varied from 2.76 to 2.87 eV with applied pressure varied from 0 to 5.9 GPa. The pressure coefficient for the direct bandgap of SLs was found to be 26 meV/GPa. The obtained experimental result was supported by theoretical results obtained using density functional theory calculations. The volume deformation potential was estimated using the empirical rule. We believe that our findings may provide valuable insight for a better understanding of {CdO/MgO} SLs toward their future applications in optoelectronics.