Open AccessFirst-principles investigation of carrier Auger lifetime and impact ionization rate in narrow-gap superlattices
Author(s) -
Weifeng Sun,
Meicheng Li,
Zhao Liancheng
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
wuli xuebao
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 47
ISSN - 1000-3290
DOI - 10.7498/aps.59.5661
Subject(s) - superlattice , auger , auger effect , semiconductor , carrier lifetime , impact ionization , formalism (music) , materials science , fermi level , condensed matter physics , ionization , band gap , plane wave , physics , atomic physics , optoelectronics , ion , optics , quantum mechanics , musical , art , silicon , visual arts , electron
We investigate theoretically the technologically essential Auger recombination lifetime in narrow-gap semiconductor superlattices by means of a completely first-principles formalism, based on accurate energy bands and wave functions provided by the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave scheme. The minority carrier Auger lifetimes are determined by two correlated approaches: (1) direct evaluation in Fermi's golden rule, and (2) indirect evaluation, based on a detailed balance formulation relating Auger recombination and its inverse process, impact ionization, in a unified framework. Lifetimes determined by the direct and indirect methods for n -doped HgTe/CdTe and InAs/InxGa1xSb superlattices exhibit excellent consistency with experimentally measured values. This justifies the computational formalism as a new sensitive tool in performance optimization of the synthetic narrow-gap semiconductor superlattice systems.