Electric subbands in Si/SiGe strained layer superlattices

The subband structure for electrons in Si/SiGe strained layer superlattices along the (100) direction is calculated self-consistently including many-body effects in the local density approximation. The strain induced splitting of the six-fold degenerate conduction band results in different potential wells for different valleys. The charge distribution between the layers and valleys is calculated versus carrier concentration and conduction band offset for different strains. An estimate for the band offsets is obtained by comparison of experimental results with the calculations.