Screening influence on the Stark effect of impurity states in strained wurtzite GaN/AlxGa1−xN heterojunctions under pressure

Abstract

The screening effect of the random-phase-approximation on the states of shallow donor impurities in free strained wurtzite GaN/AlxGa1–xN heterojunctions under hydrostatic pressure and an external electric field is investigated by using a variational method and a simplified coherent potential approximation. The variations of Stark energy shift with electric field, impurity position, Al component and areal electron density are discussed. Our results show that the screening dramatically reduces both the blue and red shifts as well as the binding energies of impurity states. For a given impurity position, the change in binding energy is more sensitive to the increase in hydrostatic pressure in the presence of the screening effect than that in the absence of the screening effect. The weakening of the blue and red shifts, induced by the screening effect, strengthens gradually with the increase of electric field. Furthermore, the screening effect weakens the mixture crystal effect, thereby influencing the Stark effect. The screening effect strengthens the influence of energy band bending on binding energy due to the areal electron density.