Empirical pseudopotential band structure parameters of 4H-SiC using a genetic algorithm fitting routine

In this paper, the viability of using a genetic algorithm to find band structure parameters for empirical pseudopotential method (EPM) calculations is demonstrated by applying a genetic algorithm to find the EPM parameters for 4H-SiC. The form of the pseudopotential for 4H-SiC and the 19 form factors found by the genetic algorithm to fit the band structure to experimentally measured indirect energy gap and direct optical gaps are given. In addition, the effective masses for the conduction band minimum are extracted from the calculated band structure. It is shown that the genetic algorithm provides an effective, automated way to find parameters that give reasonably good fits to both the band gaps and the effective masses simultaneously. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.