Huge built-in electric fields have been predicted to exist in wurtzite III-V
nitrides thin films and multilayers. Such fields originate from heterointerface
discontinuities of the macroscopic bulk polarization of the nitrides. Here we
discuss the background theory, the role of spontaneous polarization in this
context, and the practical implications of built-in polarization fields in
nitride nanostructures. To support our arguments, we present detailed
self-consistent tight-binding simulations of typical nitride QW structures in
which polarization effects are dominant.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, uses revtex/epsf. submitted to PR
