GaN-based heterostructures: electric--static equilibrium and boundary conditions
Zhang Jin-Feng(张金风)† and Hao Yue(郝跃)
Key Lab of Ministry of Education for Wide Band-Gap Semiconductor Materials and Devices, Microelectronics Institute, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
Abstract In the GaN-based heterostructures, this paper reports that the strong electric fields induced by polarization effects at the structure boundaries complicate the electric--static equilibrium and the boundary conditions. The basic requirements of electric--static equilibrium for the heterostructure systems are discussed first, and it is deduced that in the application of the coupled Schr?dinger--Poisson model to the heterostructures of electric--static equilibrium state, zero external electric field guarantees the overall electric neutrality, and there is no need to introduce the charge balance equation. Then the relation between the screening of the polar charges in GaN-based heterostructures and the possible boundary conditions of the Poisson equation is analysed, it is shown that the various boundary conditions are equivalent to each other, and the surface charge, which can be used in studying the screening of the polar charges, can be precisely solved even if only the conduction band energy is correctly known at the surface. Finally, through the calculations on an AlGaN/GaN heterostructure with typical structure parameters by the coupled Schr?dinger--Poisson model under the various boundary conditions, the correctness of the above analyses are validated.
Received: 14 December 2005
Revised: 03 March 2006
Accepted manuscript online:
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