Eur. Phys. J. B (2015) 88: 312
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2015-60279-x

Regular Article

Theoretical calculations on structural and electronic properties of BGaAsBi alloys

Sakarya University Science and Art Faculty, Physics Department, Esentepe 54187 Sakarya, Turkey

^a e-mail: maslan@sakarya.edu.tr

Received: 8 April 2015
Received in final form: 2 August 2015
Published online: 26 November 2015

Abstract

The structural and electronic properties of cubic B_xGa_1−xAs_1−yBi_y alloys with bismuth (Bi) concentration of 0.0625, 0.125, 0.1875 and 0.25 are studied with various boron (B) compositions by means of density functional theory (DFT) within the Wu-Cohen (WC) exchange correlation potential based on generalized gradient approximation (GGA). For all studied alloy structures, we have implemented geometric optimization before the volume optimization calculations. The obtained equilibrium lattice constants and band gap of studied quaternary alloys are investigated for the first time in literature. While the lattice constant behavior changes linearly with boron concentration, increasing small amount of bismuth concentration alter the lattice constant nonlinearly. The present calculation shows that the band gap decreases with increasing bismuth concentration and direct band gap semiconductor alloy became an indirect band gap with increasing boron concentration. From the band offset calculation we have shown that increasing B and Bi concentration in host GaAs reduced the valance band offset in a heterostructure formed by GaAs and studied alloys.