Investigation of the effective mass in dilute nitride semiconductors

Dilute nitride semiconductors (DNS), such as GaAsN, with a nitrogen content y of a few percent or even less, have attracted considerable current interest due to the giant bowing effect. That, in turn, offers the possibility to tailor the band structure of new devices, like LEDs, lasers, solar cells, and infrared photodetectors by varying the nitrogen content [1]. Determining proper values of the effective mass (EM) of DNS is a topic of interest because of the inconsistency of previous results (e.g. [2,3]). To clarify the conflict we study a series of GaAsN and InAsN samples (y=0%-1.9%) by cyclotron resonance (CR) spectroscopy, Fourier spectroscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy in magnetic fields in order to deduce the EM via the CR frequency, plasma frequency and the dielectric shift, respectively. First results of CR measurements indicate that the EM is not significantly affected by the nitrogen doping in contrast to previous publications.

[1] A. Erol, Dilute III-V Nitride semiconductors and Material Systems, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg (2008)
[2] F. Masia et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 82, 4474 (2003)
[3] Y. J. Wang et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 82, 4453 (2003)