Temperature dependence of the electron spin $\textbf{g}$ factor in CdTe and InP

TL;DR

This study calculates and compares the temperature dependence of electron spin g factors in CdTe and InP, showing good agreement with experimental data and highlighting the role of band structure modifications and bulk inversion asymmetry effects.

Contribution

The paper introduces a theoretical model that accurately predicts the temperature dependence of electron spin g factors in CdTe and InP, incorporating band nonparabolicity and bulk inversion asymmetry effects.

Findings

Theoretical g factors agree with experimental data up to 300 K for CdTe and 180 K for InP.

Temperature dependence of g is stronger in CdTe due to band-edge g value signs.

Bulk inversion asymmetry contributes observable effects to g values.

Abstract

Temperature dependence of the electron spin $g$ factors in bulk CdTe and InP are calculated and compared with experiment. It is assumed that the only modification of the band structure related to temperature is a dilatation change in the fundamental energy gap. The dilatation changes of fundamental gaps are calculated for both materials using available experimental data. Computations of the band structures in the presence of a magnetic field are carried out employing five-level {\Pp} model appropriate for medium-gap semiconductors. In particular, the model takes into account spin splitting due to bulk inversion asymmetry (BIA) of the materials. The resulting theoretical effective masses and $g$ factors increase with electron energy due to band nonparabolicity. Average $g$ values are calculated summing over populated Landau and spin levels properly accounting for the thermal distribution of electrons in the band. It is shown that the spin splitting due to BIA in the presence of magnetic field gives observable contributions to $g$ values. Our calculations are in good agreement with experiment in the temperature range of 0 K to 300 K for CdTe and 0 K to 180 K for InP. The temperature dependence of $g$ is stronger in CdTe than in InP due to different signs of the band-edge $g$ values in the two materials. Good agreement between the theory and experiment strongly indicates that the temperature dependence of spin $g$ factors is correctly explained. In addition, we discuss formulas for the energy dependence of spin $g$ factor due to band nonparabolicity, which are liable to misinterpretation.