ON THE ELECTRONIC CONTRIBUTION TO THE ELASTIC-CONSTANTS IN STRAINED QUANTUM-WIRE SUPERLATTICES OF NON-PARABOLIC SEMICONDUCTORS WITH GRADED STRUCTURES - THEORY AND SUGGESTION FOR EXPERIMENTAL-DETERMINATION

We study the electronic contribution to the second- and third-order el astic constants in strained quantum wire superlattices of non-paraboli c semiconductors with graded structures and compare the same with the constituent materials, by formulating the appropriate dispersion laws. It is found, taking InSb/GaSb quantum wire superlattice as an example , that the said contributions increase with decreasing thickness and w ith increasing electron concentration in oscillatory manners together with the fact that the influence of the finite interface width enhance s their numerical values. An experimental method is suggested for dete r mining the electronic contribution to the elastic constants in mater ials having arbitrary dispersion laws. In addition, the well-known res ults for constituent semiconductors in the absence of stress have also been obtained as special cases of our generalized formulations.