Influence of Boundary Structure on a Light Absorption in Semiconductors

TL;DR

This paper proposes new boundary conditions for envelope wave functions in semiconductors, showing how boundary symmetry affects light absorption, especially in small crystallites with surface effects enhancing electron transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a phenomenological boundary condition framework that accounts for crystal symmetry and surface effects on electron behavior and light absorption in semiconductors.

Findings

Boundary conditions depend on boundary symmetry and are independent of electron energy.

Surface effects can significantly enhance light absorption in small crystallites.

Crystallite size and interface structure influence absorption properties.

Abstract

The phenomenological boundary conditions for the envelope wave function, which is applicable for contacts of semiconductors with the rather different crystal symmetry are proposed. It is shown that the boundary conditions are determined by the number of real values, which are independent of the electron energy. The number of these parameters depends on the symmetry of the bordered materials as well as the symmetry of the boundary itself. The proposed boundary conditions are used for the investigation of the light absorption at the indirect-band-gap semiconductor surface. It is shown that the possibility of the electron transitions with the momentum nonconservation could result in enhancement of the absorption. This is especially the case for the small crystallites, which size is about 50 \AA , and where the share of the surface atoms is sufficiently large. The influence of the cristallite size as well as the structure of the interface on the absorption are investigated.