Electronic and lattice dynamical properties of II-IV-N2 semiconductors

The II-IV-N-2 semiconductors constitute a family of heterovalent ternary semiconductors with properties closely related to those of the III-Nitrides. We here focus on Zn-IV-N-2 semiconductors with the group IV-element Si, Ge and Sn. We present results on their electronic band structures obtained with the quasiparticle self-consistent GW method and the full-potential linearized muffin-tin orbital method. The latter is also used to calculate the energies of formation of these compounds from the constituent elements. The lattice dynamical properties were presented earlier in a series of papers and the main properties are briefly reviewed here. We emphasize the trends in the family of materials compared to those of the III-N and discuss the experimental data for the phonons. (C) 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim