title: Tight binding modelling of energy band structure in nitride heterostructures.
abstract: We studied the electronic structure of group III-V nitride ternary/binary heterostructures by using a semi-empirical sp(3)s* tight binding theory, parametrized to provide accurate description of both valence and conductions bands. It is shown that the sp(3)s* basis, along with the second nearest neighbor (2NN) interactions, spin-orbit splitting of cation and anion atoms, and nonlinear composition variations of atomic energy levels and bond length of ternary, is sufficient to describe the electronic structure of III-V ternary/binary nitride heterostructures. Comparison with experiment shows that tight binding theory provides good description of band structure of III-V nitride semiconductors. The effect of interface strain on valence band offsets in the conventional Al(1-x)Ga(x)N/GaN and In(1-x) Ga(x) N/GaN and dilute GaAs(1-x)Nx/GaAs nitride heterostructures is found to be linear function of composition for the entire composition range (0 < or = x < or = 1) because of smaller valence band deformations.
authors.affiliation: Computational Science and Engineering Division, Informatics Institute, istanbul Technical University, Maslak 34469 Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ozden
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Akinci
authors.forename: H Hakan
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Gürel
authors.forename: Hilmi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Unlü