AlN ES

Electronic Structure of Aluminum Nitride

	R. H. French, D. J. Jones, H. Müllejans, S. Loughin, A. D. Dorneich, P. F. Carcia "Optical Properties of Aluminum Nitride: Determined from Vacuum Ultraviolet Spectroscopy and Spectroscopic Ellipsometry", Journal of Materials Research, 14, 4337-44, (1999).
	S. Loughin, R. H. French, L. K. DeNoyer, W. -Y. Ching, Y. -N. Xu, "Critical Point Analysis of the Interband Transition Strength of Electrons", Journal of Physics D, 29 1740-50 (1996).
	S. Loughin, R. H. French, W. Y. Ching, Y. N. Xu, G. A. Slack, "Electronic Structure of Aluminum Nitride: Theory and Experiment", Applied Physics Letters, 63, 9, 1182-4, (1993).

We report the results of a vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) study of single crystal and polycrystalline AlN, over the range 4-40 eV and compare these with theoretical optical properties calculated from first-principles using an orthogonalized linear combination of atomic orbitals (OLCAO) in the local density approximation (LDA). The electronic structure of AlN has a 2D character indicated by logarithmic divergences at 8.7 and 14 eV. These mark the centers of two sets of 2D critical points which are associated with N2p to Al3s transitions and Al=N to Al3p transitions, respectively. A third feature is centered at 33 (eV) and associated with N2s to Al3d transitions.