Direct determination of the electron effective mass of GaAsN by terahertz cyclotron resonance spectroscopy

We use cyclotron resonance THz-spectroscopy in pulsed magnetic fields up to 63 T to measure the electron effective mass in Si-doped GaAsN semiconductor alloys with nitrogen content up to 0.2%. This technique directly probes the transport properties of the N-modified conduction band, particularly the electron effective mass, which has been discussed controversially in the experimental and theoretical literature. We report a slight increase of the electron effective mass and nonparabolicity with N-content for different photon energies in agreement with the two-level band anticrossing model calculations. Furthermore, we show a pronounced electron mobility drop with increasing N-content. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.