Band gap bowing of binary alloys: Experimental results compared to theoretical tight-binding supercell calculations for CdZnSe

Compound semiconductor alloys of the type ABC find widespread applications as their electronic bulk band gap varies continuously with x, and therefore a tayloring of the energy gap is possible by variation of the concentration. We model the electronic properties of such semiconductor alloys by a multiband tight-binding model on a finite ensemble of supercells and determine the band gap of the alloy. This treatment allows for an intrinsic reproduction of band bowing effects as a function of the concentration x and is exact in the alloy-induced disorder. In the present paper, we concentrate on bulk CdZnSe as a well-defined model system and give a careful analysis on the proper choice of the basis set and supercell size, as well as on the necessary number of realizations. The results are compared to experimental results obtained from ellipsometric measurements of CdZnSe layers prepared by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and photoluminescence (PL) measurements on catalytically grown CdZnSe nanowires reported in the literature.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Superconducting epitaxial thin films of CeNi[sub x]Bi[sub 2] with a bismuth square net structure

We have grown highly epitaxial and phase pure thin films of the arsenic-free pnictidecompoundCeNixBi2 on (100) MgO substrates by reactive molecular beam epitaxy (RMBE). X-ray diffraction and reflection high-energy electron diffraction of the films confirm the ZrCuSiAs structure with a Bi square net layer. Superconductivity was observed in magnetization and resistivity measurements for x = 0.75 to 0.93 in these CeNixBi2thin films with the highest critical temperature of 4.05 K and a resistive transition width of 0.1 K for x = 0.86. Our results indicate that thin film deposition by RMBE provides a tool to synthesize high-quality pnictidesuperconductors of the novel 112 type

Superconductivity and role of pnictogen and Fe substitution in 112-LaPdxPn2(Pn=Sb,Bi)

We report on the epitaxial growth of As-free and phase-pure thin films of the 112-pnictide compounds LaPdxPn2 (Pn=Sb,Bi) grown on (100) MgO substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. X-ray diffraction, reflection high-energy electron diffraction, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirm the HfCuSi2 structure of the material with a peculiar pnictogen square net layer. The superconducting transition temperature Tc varies little with Pd concentration. LaPdxSb2 has a higher Tc (3.2 K) by about 20% compared with LaPdxBi2 (2.7 K). Fe substitution of Pd leads to a rapid decay of superconductivity, suggesting that these superconductors are conventional type II