Electronic structures of the zinc-blende GaN/Ga_(1-x)Al_xN compressively strained superlattices and quantum wells

摘要

The electronic structures of the zinc-blende GaN/Ga_(0.85)Al_(0.15)N compressively strained super-lattices and quantum wells are investigated using a 6 x 6 Hamiltonian model (including the heavy hole, light hole and spin-orbit splitting band). The energy bands, wavefunctions and optical transition matrix elements are calculated. It is found that the light hole couples with the spin-orbit splitting state even at the k=0 point, resulting in the hybrid states. The heavy hole remains a pure heavy hole state at k = 0. The optical transitions from the hybrid valence states to the conduction states are determined by the transitions of the light hole and spin-orbit splitting states to the conduction states. The transitions from the heavy hole, light hole and spin-orbit splitting states to the conduction states obey the selection rule Δn = 0. The band structures obtained in this work will be valuable in designing GaN/GaAlN based optoelectronic devices.