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Register a new userPrecise Radiative Lifetimes in Bulk Crystals from First Principles: The Case of Wurtzite GaN
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Gallium nitride (GaN) is a key semiconductor for solid-state lighting, but its radiative processes are not fully understood. Here we show a first-principles approach to accurately compute the radiative lifetimes in bulk uniaxial crystals, focusing on wurtzite GaN. Our computed radiative lifetimes are in very good agreement with experiment up to 100 K. We show that taking into account excitons (through the Bethe-Salpeter equation) and spin-orbit coupling to include the exciton fine structure is essential for computing accurate radiative lifetimes. A model for exciton dissociation into free carriers allows us to compute the radiative lifetimes up to room temperature. Our work enables precise radiative lifetime calculations in III-nitrides and other anisotropic solid-state emitters.
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Significant differences exist among literature for thermal conductivity of various systems computed using molecular dynamics simulation. In some cases, unphysical results, for example, negative thermal conductivity, have been found. Using GaN as an example case and the direct non-equilibrium method, extensive molecular dynamics simulations and Monte Carlo analysis of the results have been carried out to quantify the uncertainty level of the molecular dynamics methods and to identify the conditions that can yield sufficiently accurate calculations of thermal conductivity. We found that the errors of the calculations are mainly due to the statistical thermal fluctuations. Extrapolating results to the limit of an infinite-size system tend to magnify the errors and occasionally lead to unphysical results. The error in bulk estimates can be reduced by performing longer time averages using properly selected systems over a range of sample lengths. If the errors in the conductivity estimates associated with each of the sample lengths are kept below a certain threshold, the likelihood of obtaining unphysical bulk values becomes insignificant. Using a Monte-Carlo approach developed here, we have determined the probability distributions for the bulk thermal conductivities obtained using the direct method. We also have observed a nonlinear effect that can become a source of significant errors. For the extremely accurate results presented here, we predict a [0001] GaN thermal conductivity of 185 $rm{W/K cdot m}$ at 300 K, 102 $rm{W/K cdot m}$ at 500 K, and 74 $rm{W/K cdot m}$ at 800 K. Using the insights obtained in the work, we have achieved a corresponding error level (standard deviation) for the bulk (infinite sample length) GaN thermal conductivity of less than 10 $rm{W/K cdot m}$, 5 $rm{W/K cdot m}$, and 15 $rm{W/K cdot m}$ at 300 K, 500 K, and 800 K respectively.
Using first-principles calculations, we explored all the 21 defect-pairs in GaN and considered 6 configurations with different defect-defect distances for each defect-pair. 15 defect-pairs with short defect-defect distances are found to be stable during structural relaxation, so they can exist in the GaN lattice once formed during the irradiation of high-energy particles. 9 defect-pairs have formation energies lower than 10 eV in the neutral state. The vacancy-pair VN-VN is found to have very low formation energies, as low as 0 eV in p-type and Ga-rich GaN, and act as efficient donors producing two deep donor levels, which can limit the p-type doping and minority carrier lifetime in GaN. VN-VN has been overlooked in the previous study of defects in GaN. Most of these defect-pairs act as donors and produce a large number of defect levels in the band gap. Their formation energies and concentrations are sensitive to the chemical potentials of Ga and N, so their influences on the electrical and optical properties of Ga-rich and N-rich GaN after irradiation should differ significantly. These results about the defect-pairs provide fundamental data for understanding the radiation damage mechanism in GaN and simulating the defect formation and diffusion behavior under irradiation.
While cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin films are being used in solar cell prototyping for decades, the recent advent of two-dimensional (2D) materials challenges the fundamental limit for thickness of conventional CdTe layers. Here, we report our theoretical predictions on photocarrier dynamics in an ultimately thin (about 1 nm) CdTe slab. It corresponds to a layer that is just a single unit cell thick, when the bulk parent crystal in the zinc blende phase is cleaved along the [110] facet. Using an textit{ab-initio} method based on density functional theory (DFT) and the Boltzmann equation in the relaxation time approximation (RTA), we determine the thermalization time for charge carriers excited to a certain energy for instance through laser irradiation. Our calculations include contributions arising from all phonon branches in the first Brillouin zone (BZ), thus capturing all relevant inter- and intraband carrier transitions due to electron-phonon scattering. We find that the photocarrier thermalization time is strongly reduced, by one order of magnitude for holes and by three orders of magnitude for electrons, once the CdTe crystal is thinned down from the bulk to a monolayer. Most surprisingly, the electron thermalization time becomes independent of the electron excess energy up to about 0.5~eV, when counted from the conduction band minimum (CBM). We relate this peculiar behavior to the degenerate and nearly parabolic lowest conduction band that yields a constant density of states (DOS) in the 2D limit. Our findings may be useful for designing novel CdTe-based optoelectronic devices, which employ nonequilibrium photoexcited carriers to improve the performance.
We combine ab initio simulations and Raman scattering measurements to demonstrate explicit anharmonic effects in the temperature dependent dielectric response of a NaCl single crystal. We measure the temperature evolution of its Raman spectrum and compare it to both a quasi-harmonic and anharmonic model. Results demonstrate the necessity of including anharmonic lattice dynamics to explain the dielectric response of NaCl, as it is manifested in Raman scattering. Our model fully captures the linear dielectric response of a crystal at finite temperatures and may therefore be used to calculate the temperature dependence of other material properties governed by it.
We calculate the bulk photovoltaic response of the ferroelectrics BaTiO$_3$ and PbTiO$_3$ from first principles by applying shift current theory to the electronic structure from density functional theory. The first principles results for BaTiO$_3$ reproduce eperimental photocurrent direction and magnitude as a function of light frequency, as well as the dependence of current on light polarization, demonstrating that shift current is the dominant mechanism of the bulk photovoltaic effect in BaTiO$_3$. Additionally, we analyze the relationship between response and material properties in detail. The photocurrent does not depend simply or strongly on the magnitude of material polarization, as has been previously assumed; instead, electronic states with delocalized, covalent bonding that is highly asymmetric along the current direction are required for strong shift current enhancements. The complexity of the response dependence on both external and material parameters suggests applications not only in solar energy conversion, but to photocatalysis and sensor and switch type devices as well.
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