Characterization of MBE-grown InAlN/GaN heterostructure valence band offsets with varying In composition

Angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is used in this work to experimentally determine the valence band offsets of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE)-grown InAlN/GaN heterostructures with varying indium composition. We find that the internal electric field resulting from polarization must be taken into account when analyzing the XPS data. Valence band offsets of 0.12 eV for In0.18Al0.82N, 0.15 eV for In0.17Al0.83N, and 0.23 eV for In0.098Al0.902N with GaN are obtained. The results show that a compositional-depended bowing parameter is needed in order to estimate the valence band energies of InAlN as a function of composition in relation to those of the binary endpoints, AlN and InN.