An energy offset (
) is used to align the valence band of
different materials. In this work GaN is chosen as the reference for
the III-V materials (
eV). The energies of the conduction and
valence band edges are calculated by
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The most widely cited value for the valence band offset of InN/GaN is
the one reported by Martin et al. [334]
(
eV). It was however determined over a decade ago,
and the recent reevaluation of the band structure have rendered it
dated. Recent studies show a valence band offset between 0.58
[335] and 0.62 eV [323]. The band alignment is
shown schematically in Fig. 4.9.
For alloys the offset energy is calculated by the following expression [138]:
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As an example, for AlGa
N with
=0.22 the
valence-band-offset against GaN is 0.25 eV. Our setup provides a value
of 0.225 eV for
=0.2, which is in a good agreement with the
experimentally determined offset of 0.25 eV [336] for the same
composition.