Study of the vertical transport in p-doped superlattices based on group III-V semiconductors

• Published in: Nanoscale research letters Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 175
• Main Authors: dos Santos, Osmar FP, Rodrigues, Sara CP, Sipahi, Guilherme M, Scolfaro, Luísa MR, da Silva, Eronides F
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer New York 25-02-2011; BioMed Central Ltd; Springer; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Chemistry and Materials Science; International Conference on Superlattices; Materials Science; Molecular Medicine; Nano Express; Nanochemistry; Nanoscale Science and Technology; Nanostructures and Nanodevices (ICSNN 2010); Nanotechnology; Nanotechnology and Microengineering; Heavy Hole; Conduction Band Discontinuity; Vertical Transport; Fermi Level; Local Density Approximation
• ISSN: 1556-276X; 1931-7573; 1556-276X
• DOI: 10.1186/1556-276X-6-175

The electrical conductivity σ has been calculated for
p
-doped GaAs/Al
0.3
Ga
0.7
As and cubic GaN/Al
0.3
Ga
0.7
N thin superlattices (SLs). The calculations are done within a self-consistent approach to the
k
→
⋅
p
→
theory by means of a full six-band Luttinger-Kohn Hamiltonian, together with the Poisson equation in a plane wave representation, including exchange correlation effects within the local density approximation. It was also assumed that transport in the SL occurs through extended minibands states for each carrier, and the conductivity is calculated at zero temperature and in low-field ohmic limits by the quasi-chemical Boltzmann kinetic equation. It was shown that the particular minibands structure of the
p
-doped SLs leads to a plateau-like behavior in the conductivity as a function of the donor concentration and/or the Fermi level energy. In addition, it is shown that the Coulomb and exchange-correlation effects play an important role in these systems, since they determine the bending potential.