The electronic structure of wurtzite and zincblende AlN: an ab initio comparative study

This work deals with the electronic properties, in different crystal phases, of AlN (wurtzite and zincblende) compounds computed using an all electron ab initio linearized augmented plane wave method. Results include band structure, total and partial density of states, charge density and the ionicity factor. Most of the calculated band parameters, of direct bandgap, total- and upper-valence bandwidths and antisymmetric gap for wurtzite-AlN are close to those of c-AlN to within 1%. The charge distributions have similar features, meaning that AlN has the same ionicity factor in both structures.

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