Electronic structure of and quantum size effect in III-V and II-VI semiconducting nanocrystals using a realistic tight binding approach

We analyze the electronic structure of group III-V semiconductors obtained within full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method and arrive at a realistic and minimal tight-binding model, parametrized to provide an accurate description of both valence and conduction bands. It is shown that the cation sp³- anion sp³d⁵ basis along with the next nearest neighbor model for hopping interactions is sufficient to describe the electronic structure of these systems over a wide energy range, obviating the use of any fictitious s* orbital, employed previously. Similar analyses were also performed for the II-VI semiconductors, using the more accurate FP-LAPW method compared to previous approaches, in order to enhance reliability of the parameter values. Using these parameters, we calculate the electronic structure of III-V and II-VI nanocrystals in real space with sizes ranging up to about 70.3em0exnm in diameter, establishing a quantitatively accurate description of the bandgap variation with sizes for the various nanocrystals by comparing with available experimental results from the literature.