Theoretical investigation of GaAsNBi/GaAs materials for optoelectronic applications

In this paper, we report a theoretical investigation of bandgap properties of GaAsNBi based materials on GaAs substrates. We look at the influence of nitrogen (N) and bismuth (Bi) concentrations on the position of conduction and valence bands; and we show that a split of the conduction band can take place with the incorporation of N at 5% under level, while a split of the valence band of both heavy and light holes sub-bands takes place after the incorporation of Bi at 14% under level. In order to compute the transition energies, we used the VBCA k.p 16×16 model. The N and Bi concentrations effects as well as the lattice mismatch value have also been taken into account. For a couple of N and Bi concentrations of 3% and 6%, we found strained gap energy around 0.68 eV. Furthermore, we have also shown that the absorption coefficient increases significantly when the N and Bi concentrations increase.