Effect of nitrogen on the band structure of III-N-V alloys

Incorporation of a few percent of nitrogen into conventional III-V compounds to form III-N-V alloys such as GaNAs and GaNP leads to a large reduction of the fundamental band gap. We show experimentally and theoretically that the effect originates from an anti-crossing interaction between the extended conduction-band states and a narrow resonant band formed by localized N states. The interaction significantly alters the electronic band structure by splitting the conduction band into two nonparabolic subbands. The downward shift of the lower conduction subband edge is responsible for the N-induced reduction of the fundamental band-gap energy.