Piezoelectric fields in nitride devices

We have calculated the piezoelectric field and charge distribution for vari ous III-nitride heterostructures. Our calculations include strain energy mi nimization and doping effects, and are presented to show the magnitude of p iezoelectric effects in strained layers. We compare our calculated results to device results where available. These include the two-dimensional electr on gas in heterojunction field effect transistors, Schottky diodes with str ained layers for Schottky height engineering, and III-nitride single quantu m wells. Calculations that included energy considerations resulted in good agreement between predicted and observed field and charge distributions for the heterojunction fields-effect transistors structure. (C) 1999 American Vacuum Society. [S0734-211X(99)07104-8].