Electronic band structure of a type-II ''W'' quantum well calculated by an eight-band k?p model

In this paper, we present an investigation of type-II 'W' quantum wells for the InAs/Ga1-xInxSb/AlSb family, where 'W' denotes the conduction profile of the material. We focus our attention on using the eight-band k?p model to calculate the band structures within the framework of finite element method. For the sake of clarity, the simulation in this paper is simplified and based on only one period---AlSb/InAs/Ga1-xInxSb/InAs/AlSb. The obtained numerical results include the energy levels and wavefunctions of carriers. We discuss the variations of the electronic properties by changing several important parameters, such as the thickness of either InAs or Ga1-xInxSb layer and the alloy composition in Ga1-xInxSb separately. In the last part, in order to compare the eight-band k?p model, we recalculate the conduction bands of the 'W' structure using the one-band k?p model and then discuss the difference between the two results, showing that conduction bands are strongly coupled with valence bands in the narrow band gap structure. The in-plane energy dispersions, which illustrate the suppression of the Auger recombination process, are also obtained.