Ab initio optoelectronic properties of SiGe nanowires: Role of many-body effects

The self-energy and electron-hole interaction corrections to the one-particle approximation for SiGe nanowires have been calculated for different geometries and diameters. We show that, at fixed nanowire diameter and orientation, the self-energy corrections for the SiGe nanowires can be obtained as a weighted average, on the relative composition of one type of atom with respect to the total numbers of atoms in the unit cell, of the corrections for the pure (Si and Ge) nanowires, thus circumventing cumbersome computations and allowing a direct and practical determination of the electronic band gap. Moreover we show that particular geometrical configurations are at the origin of an enhancement of the optical oscillator strength that should be important for optoelectronic applications. ©2010 The American Physical Society