We present a comprehensive, up-to-date compilation of band parameters for the technologically important III–V zinc blende and wurtzite compound semiconductors: GaAs, GaSb, GaP, GaN, AlAs, AlSb, AlP, AlN, InAs, InSb, InP, and InN, along with their ternary and quaternary alloys. Based on a review of the existing literature, complete and consistent parameter sets are given for all materials. Emphasizing the quantities required for band structure calculations, we tabulate the direct and indirect energy gaps, spin-orbit, and crystal-field splittings, alloy bowing parameters, effective masses for electrons, heavy, light, and split-off holes, Luttinger parameters, interband momentum matrix elements, and deformation potentials, including temperature and alloy-composition dependences where available. Heterostructure band offsets are also given, on an absolute scale that allows any material to be aligned relative to any other.

Band parameters for III–V compound semiconductors and their alloys

Recent advances in nonsilica fiber technology have prompted the development of suitable materials for devices operating beyond 155 mu m The III-V ternaries and quaternaries (AlGaIn)(AsSb) lattice matched to GaSb seem to be the obvious choice and have turned out to be promising candidates for high speed electronic and long wavelength photonic devices Consequently, there has been tremendous upthrust in research activities of GaSb-based systems As a matter of fact, this compound has proved to be an interesting material for both basic and applied research At present, GaSb technology is in its infancy and considerable research has to be carried out before it can be employed for large scale device fabrication This article presents an up to date comprehensive account of research carried out hitherto It explores in detail the material aspects of GaSb starting from crystal growth in bulk and epitaxial form, post growth material processing to device feasibility An overview of the lattice, electronic, transport, optical and device related properties is presented Some of the current areas of research and development have been critically reviewed and their significance for both understanding the basic physics as well as for device applications are addressed These include the role of defects and impurities on the structural, optical and electrical properties of the material, various techniques employed for surface and bulk defect passivation and their effect on the device characteristics, development of novel device structures, etc Several avenues where further work is required in order to upgrade this III-V compound for optoelectronic devices are listed It is concluded that the present day knowledge in this material system is sufficient to understand the basic properties and what should be more vigorously pursued is their implementation for device fabrication (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics

The physics and technology of gallium antimonide: An emerging optoelectronic material

The authors report a characterisation study of single epitaxial layers of GaSb grown by the technique of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Both optical and electrical properties of this material are determined by low-temperature photo-luminescence and Hall effect techniques respectively, and compared with previous work on bulk GaSb grown by other methods. Optically detected cyclotron resonance (ODCR) measurements are reported for the first time in this material in order to determine conduction band electron effective masses and carrier momentum relaxation times. Deduced electron mobilities obtained by this novel technique are of the order of 105 cm2V-1s-1 and are in close agreement with theory.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0268-1242/3/12/002/pdf

Optical, Hall and cyclotron resonance measurements of GaSb grown by molecular beam epitaxy

The effect of carrier concentration and compensation on the electron mobilities in GaSb at 300 and 77 K are investigated. Since the energy of the L band minima relative to the Γ band minima in GaSb is reported to range from 0.075 to 0.09 eV, electrons are present in significant amount in both the Γ and L bands at about 150 K and above. Thus, in addition to the impurities and phonons scattering, non-equivalent and equivalent intervalley scattering in both conduction bands are also included in the 300 K calculation. To compare the calculated Hall mobility with the various 300 K experimental data consistently, the electron mobilities in the Γ and L bands are combined using a two band model. This is because experimental electron Hall mobility and electron concentration determined above 150 K are weighted averages of the true values in the two conduction bands. It is found that the correlation for the heavily doped bulk samples are good while for the lighter doped thin epilayers, the calculated mobilities are at least 20% higher. We attribute this to several effects present in the real samples and the growth conditions which are not taken into consideration in the calculations. The 77 K highly doped bulk and best MBE data are also found to correlate reasonably well with the calculated values. We have also numerically fitted all the electron mobilities calculated to a l th polynomial in carrier concentration which may facilitate device modelling.

DouglasA. Hill

Papers

Microwave cyclotron resonance of hot electrons in p-type GaSb*