Electronic-Structure of the Semimetals Bi and Sb

Abstract

We have developed a third-neighbor tight-binding model, with spin-orbit coupling included, to treat the electronic properties of Bi and Sb. This model successfully reproduces the features near the Fermi surface that will be most important in semimetal-semiconductor device structures, including (a) the small overlap of valence and conduction bands, (b) the electron and hob effective masses, and (c) the shapes of the electron and:hole Fermi surfaces. The present tight-binding model treats these semimetallic properties quantitatively, and it should, therefore, be useful for calculations of the electronic properties of proposed semimetal-semiconductor systems, including superlattices and resonant-tunneling devices.