Electronic structure of ZnO/MgxZn1−xO core-shell nanowires in the magnetic field

The conduction band and valence band offset of ZnO/MgxZn1−xO core-shell nanowires are determined numerically for the first time, then the six-band k · p effective-mass theory for calculating the electronic structure of the free-standing nanowires is extended to calculate the electronic structure of ZnO/MgxZn1−xO core-shell nanowires. It is found that the degenerate hole states with positive Jh and negative Jh are split by the applied magnetic field, the split energies are affected slightly by changing the radius of ZnO core and the content of magnesium in MgxZn1−xO shell. The order of the hole states will reverse if the radius of ZnO core varies, even so, the optical circularly polarized property of the lowest transition does not change when the radius of ZnO core increases. In addition, the radiative intensity of the lowest transition increases slowly with the increase of the wave vector when the magnetic field, the radius of ZnO core and the content of magnesium are fixed, while the radiative intensity of the lowest transition increases at first, then decreases with the increase of the radius of ZnO core when the wave vector is fixed.