Band offsets, wells, and barriers at nanoscale semiconductor heterojunctions

Niquet, Y.M.; Delerue, C.

Document type :

Article dans une revue scientifique

DOI :

10.1103/PhysRevB.84.075478

Title :

Band offsets, wells, and barriers at nanoscale semiconductor heterojunctions

Author(s) :

Niquet, Y.M. [Auteur]
Laboratory of Atomistic Simulation [LSIM ]
Delerue, C. [Auteur]
Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520 [IEMN]

Journal title :

Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (1998-2015)

Pages :

075478

Publisher :

American Physical Society

Publication date :

2011

ISSN :

1098-0121

HAL domain(s) :

Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]/Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

English abstract : [en]

Epitaxially grown semiconductor heterostructures make it possible to tailor the potential landscape for the carriers in a very controlled way. In planar lattice-matched heterostructures, the potential has indeed a very ...
Show more >Epitaxially grown semiconductor heterostructures make it possible to tailor the potential landscape for the carriers in a very controlled way. In planar lattice-matched heterostructures, the potential has indeed a very simple and easily predictable behavior: it is constant everywhere except at the interfaces, where there is a step (discontinuity) that only depends on the composition of the semiconductors in contact. In this paper, we show that this universally accepted picture can be invalid in nanoscale heterostructures (e.g., quantum dots, rods, nanowires), which can presently be fabricated in a large variety of forms. Self-consistent tight-binding calculations applied to systems containing up to 75 000 atoms indeed demonstrate that the potential may have a more complex behavior in axial heteronanostructures: The band edges can show significant variations far from the interfaces if the nanostructures are not capped with a homogeneous shell. These results suggest new strategies to engineer the electronic properties of nanoscale objects, e.g., for sensors and photovoltaics.Show less >

Language :

Anglais

Peer reviewed article :

Oui

Audience :

Non spécifiée

Popular science :

Non

ANR Project :

QUANTum and Atomistic MOdeling of NanoDEvices
Simulations quantiques et comparaison de nano-dispositifs

Collections :