Nonparabolicity of the conduction band of wurtzite GaN

1 December 2003

journal article
research article
Published by AIP Publishing in Applied Physics Letters

Vol. 83 (22) , 4553-4555
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1630369

Abstract

Using cyclotron resonance, we measure the effective mass, m * , of electrons in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures with densities, n 2 D ∼1 to 6×10 12 cm −2 . From our extensive data, we extrapolate a band edge mass of (0.208±0.002)m e . By comparing our m * data with the results of a multiband k ⋅ p calculation, we infer that the effect of remote bands is essential in explaining the observed conduction-band nonparabolicity (NP). Our calculation of polaron mass corrections—including finite width and two-dimensional (2D) screening—suggests those to be negligible. It implies that the behavior of m * (n 2 D ) can be understood solely in terms of NP. Finally, using our NP and polaron corrections, we are able to reduce the large scatter in the published band edge mass values.

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This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:

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