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Composition and Strain Dependence of the Piezoelectric Coefficients in Semiconductor Alloys

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

T. Hammerschmidt
Affiliation:
hammer@fhi-berlin.mpg.de, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, N/A, United Kingdom
M. A. Migliorato
Affiliation:
M.Migliorato@physics.org, University of Sheffield, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Mappin Street, Sheffield, N/A, United Kingdom
D. Powell
Affiliation:
davep@transitive.com, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, N/A, United Kingdom
A. G. Cullis
Affiliation:
a.g.cullis@sheffield.ac.uk, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, N/A, United Kingdom
G. P. Srivastava
Affiliation:
gps@excc.ex.ac.uk, University of Exeter, Exeter, N/A, United Kingdom
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Abstract

We propose a tight-binding model for the polarization that considers direct and dipole contributions and employs microscopic quantities that can be calculated by first-principles methods, e.g. by employing Density Functional Theory (DFT). Applying our model to InxGa1-xAs alloys allows us to settle discrepancies between the values of e14 as obtained from experiments and from linear interpolations between the values of InAs and GaAs. Our calculated piezoelectric coefficient is in very good agreement with photo current measurements of InAs/GaAs(111) quantum well samples.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2007

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