The spin-splitting energies of the conduction band for ideal wurtzite materials are calculated within the nearest-neighbor tight-binding method. It is found that ideal wurtzite bulk inversion asymmetry yields not only a spin-degenerate line ͑along the k z axis͒ but also a minimum-spin-splitting surface, which can be regarded as a spin-degenerate surface in the form of bk z 2 − k ʈ 2 =0 ͑b Ϸ 4͒ near the ⌫ point. This phenomenon is referred to as the Dresselhaus effect ͑defined as the cubic-ink term͒ in bulk wurtzite materials because it generates a term ␥ wz ͑bk z 2 − k ʈ 2 ͒͑ x k y − y k x ͒ in the two-band k • p Hamiltonian.

Spin-splitting energies of wurtzite AlN and InN are calculated using the linear combination of atomic orbital method, and the data are analyzed utilizing the two-band k • p model. It is found that in the k • p scheme, a spin-degenerate surface exists in the wurtzite Brillouin zone. Consequently, the D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation mechanism can be effectively suppressed for all spin components in the ͓001͔-grown wurtzite quantum wells ͑QWs͒ at a resonant condition through application of appropriate strain or a suitable gate bias. Therefore, wurtzite QWs ͑e.g., InGaN/AlGaN and GaN/ AlGaN͒ are potential structures for spintronic devices such as the resonant spin lifetime transistor.

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We develop a 16-band atomic bond-orbital model (16ABOM) to compute the spin splitting induced by bulk inversion asymmetry in zincblende materials. This model is derived from the linear combination of atomic-orbital (LCAO) scheme such that the characteristics of the real atomic orbitals can be preserved to calculate the spin splitting. The Hamiltonian of 16ABOM is based on a similarity transformation performed on the nearest-neighbor LCAO Hamiltonian with a second-order Taylor expansion k at the Γ point. The spin-splitting energies in bulk zincblende semiconductors, GaAs and InSb, are calculated, and the results agree with the LCAO and first-principles calculations. However, we find that the spin-orbit coupling between bonding and antibonding p-like states, evaluated by the 16ABOM, dominates the spin splitting of the lowest conduction bands in the zincblende materials.

Articles you may be interested inDeriving k·p parameters from full-Brillouin-zone descriptions: A finite-element envelope function model for quantum-confined wurtzite nanostructuresThe spin-splitting energies in biaxially strained bulk wurtzite material AlN are calculated using the linear combination of atomic orbital (LCAO) method, and the equi-spin-splitting distributions in k-space near the minimum-spin-splitting (MSS) surfaces are illustrated. These data are compared with those derived analytically by two-band k Á p (2KP) model. It is found that the results from these two methods are in good agreement for small k. However, the ellipsoidal MSS surface under biaxial compressive strain does not exist in the 2KP model, because the data points are far from the C point. Instead, three basic shapes of the MSS surface occur in the wurtzite Brillouin zone: a hyperboloid of two sheets, a hexagonal cone, and a hyperboloid of one sheet, evaluated from the LCAO method across the range of biaxial strains from compressive to tensile. V C 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.