Evan O. Kane developed influential descriptions of electronic band structure in semiconductors. His 1957 calculation of indium antimonide used k·p perturbation theory to treat the interaction of conduction and valence bands near their extrema. The small band gap made that interaction important rather than a negligible correction.[ref]
Band structure of indium antimonide by Evan O. Kane. Abstract and opening band-structure calculation, Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids 1, 249–261, 1957
A central consequence is band nonparabolicity: electron energy need not remain proportional to the square of wave number over the relevant range. A constant band-edge effective mass can therefore fail to describe electrons farther from the minimum. The calculation connects band coupling with a measurable change in the relation between energy and motion.
Kane also calculated the fundamental optical absorption using information from the cyclotron resonance mass and compared the prediction with experimental absorption and its dependence on impurity concentration. The agreement supplied an experimental test of the adopted band picture, rather than merely fitting an arbitrary energy curve.[ref]
Band structure of indium antimonide by Evan O. Kane. Abstract: optical absorption, cyclotron-resonance input and comparison with n-type impurity dependence
This combination of a tractable coupled-band model and measurable consequences explains the continuing usefulness of his work in semiconductor theory. Articles by others on the same topic
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