Subband energy in two-band delta-doped semiconductors

TL;DR

This paper analyzes electron behavior in two-band delta-doped semiconductors, deriving exact solutions for subband energies and revealing how doping concentration and band coupling influence energy levels.

Contribution

It introduces a method to exactly solve the Dirac-type equation for two-band delta-doped semiconductors and explores the impact of doping and band coupling on subband energies.

Findings

Ground subband energy scales as a power law with Si concentration.

Band coupling causes a depression of the subband energy.

Nonparabolicity effects are significant in energy calculations.

Abstract

We study electron dynamics in a two-band delta-doped semiconductor within the envelope-function approximation. Using a simple parametrization of the confining potential arising from the ionized donors in the delta-doping layer, we are able to find exact solutions of the Dirac-type equation describing the coupling of host bands. As an application we then consider Si delta-doped GaAs. In particular we find that the ground subband energy scales as a power law of the Si concentration per unit area in a wide range of doping levels. In addition, the coupling of host bands leads to a depression of the subband energy due to nonparabolicity effects.