Structural, electronic, and effective-mass properties of silicon and zinc-blende group-III nitride semiconductor compounds

The electronic band structures of silicon and the zinc-blende-type III-N semiconductor compounds BN, AlN, GaN, and InN are calculated by using the self-consistent full potential linear augmented plane wave method within the local-density functional approximation. Lattice constant, bulk modulus, and cohesive energy are obtained from full relativistic total-energy calculations for Si and for the nitrides. Band structures and total density of states (DOS) are presented. The role played by relativistic effects on the bulk band structures and DOS is discussed. In order to provide important band structure-derived properties, such as effective masses and Luttinger parameters, the ab initio band structure results are linked with effective-mass theory. Electron, heavy-, light-, and split-off-hole effective masses, as well as spin-orbit splitting energies an extracted from the band-structure calculations. By using the Luttinger-Kohn 6x6 effective-mass Hamiltonian we derive the corresponding Luttinger parameters for the materials. A comparison with other available theoretical results and experimental data is made.