Energy band structure of Al_xGa_1-xAs

Abstract

The electronic band structure of the semiconducting alloy AlxGa1-xAs is calculated by the empirical pseudopotential method and by an extended virtual crystal approximation. The effect of compositional disorder on the lowest direct energy gap is calculated and found to be small. The influence of positional disorder is also discussed. Our results for the most important structures in the optical spectrum are in good agreement with experimental data over the full compositional range.