Temperature dependence of band gaps in HgCdTe and other semiconductors

Band-edge shifts induced by the electron-phonon interaction are calculated for HgCdTe alloys and various semiconductor compounds starting from accurate zero-temperature band structures. The calculated temperature variation of gaps agrees with experiments to better than 10% in all materials except InAs and InSb where the deviation is about 50%. While the simple picture that the intra (inter)-band transitions reduce (increase) the gap still holds, we show that both the conduction band edge Ec and valence band edge Ev move down in energy. These shifts in Ev affect the valence band offsets in heterojunctions at finite temperature. The temperature variations of valence band offset and the electron effective mass are also reported.

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