Excitonic Exchange Splitting in Bulk Semiconductors

We present an approach to calculate the excitonic fine-structure splittings due to electron-hole short-range exchange interactions using the local-density approximation pseudopotential method, and apply it to bulk semiconductors CdSe, InP, GaAs, and InAs. Comparing with previous theoretical results, the current calculated splittings agree well with experiments. Furthermore, we provide anapproximate relationship between the short-range exchange splitting and the exciton Bohr radius, which can be used to estimate the exchange splitting for other materials. The current calculation indicates that a commonly used formula for exchange splitting in quantum dot is not valid. Finally, we find a very large pressure dependence of the exchange splitting: a factor of 4.5 increase as thelattice constant changes by 3.5%. This increase is mainly due to the decrease of the Bohr radious via the change of electron effective mass.