Electronic structure and optical properties of AlP, AlAs, and AlSb

Abstract
The composite wave variational version of the APW method is used in conjunction with the semiempirical tight‐binding interpolation scheme to obtain the electronic band structure and optical absorption characteristics of the compounds AlP, AlAs, and AlSb. The results show that all these materials are indirect band gap semiconductors. The overall feature of the energy bands and the optical characteristics agree fairly well with existing theoretical and experimental results. The implication of the interpolation parameters is also emphasised.