Towards efficient band structure and effective mass calculations for III-V direct band-gap semiconductors

Author(s)
Yoon-Suk Kim, Martijn Marsman, Georg Kresse, Fabien Tran, Peter Blaha
Abstract

The band structures and effective masses of III-V semiconductors (InP, InAs, InSb, GaAs, and GaSb) are calculated using the GW method, the Heyd, Scuseria, and Ernzerhof hybrid functional, and modified Becke-Johnson combined with the local-density approximation (MBJLDA)-a local potential optimized for the description of the fundamental band gaps [F. Tran and P. Blaha, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 226401 (2009)]. We find that MBJLDA yields an excellent description of the band gaps at high-symmetry points, on par with the hybrid functional and GW. However, the effective masses are generally overestimated by 20-30 % using the MBJLDA local multiplicative potential. We believe this to be related to incorrect nearest-neighbor hopping elements, which are little affected by the choice of the local potential. Despite these shortcomings, the MBJLDA method might be a suitable approach for predicting or interpolating the full band dispersion, if only limited experimental data are available. Furthermore, the method is applicable to systems containing several thousand atoms where accurate quasiparticle methods are not applicable.

Organisation(s)
Computational Materials Physics
External organisation(s)
Technische Universität Wien
Journal
Physical Review B
Volume
82
No. of pages
11
ISSN
1098-0121
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.82.205212
Publication date
2010
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103015 Condensed matter
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/ed086e98-b395-4fd6-aec1-78fa2d00f26b