Semiclassical potential functionals for semiconductor quantum wells

Parabolic semiconductor quantum wells are considered promising candidates for constructing devices emitting radiation in the largely unexplored THz regime. However, progress is impeded by the difficulty of fine-tuning intersubband transitions in these quantum wells which is achieved by modifying the quantum-well geometry and mixing different materials. We predict the electronic structure of parabolic semiconductor quantum wells highly efficiently by iterating the Kohn-Sham self-consistent cycle without solving the Kohn-Sham equations[1]. We achieve this by combining potential functionals[2,3] with a recently derived semiclassical approximation[4]. This (1) demonstrates our method's efficiency and accuracy for realistic systems and (2) illustrates its utility as a high-throughput method for predicting the electronic structure of technologically intriguing microstructures. [1] A. Cangi, C.R. Proetto, S. Pittalis, K. Burke, and E.K.U. Gross, submitted (2016). [2] A. Cangi, D. Lee, P. Elliott, K. Burke, and E.K.U. Gross, PRL 106, 236404 (2011). [3] A. Cangi, E. K. U. Gross, and K. Burke, PRA 88, 062505 (2013). [4] R.F. Ribeiro, D. Lee, A. Cangi, P. Elliott, and K. Burke, PRL 114, 050401 (2015).