The Kinematic Origin of Electronic Bound States in Continuum in Planar Semiconductor Heterostructures

Abstract

Localized electronic states in a planar semiconductor heterostructure with energies in the range of continuum spectrum are considered within one-band approximation. The reason for the confinement is shown to be quite general and not sensitive to details of theoretical description. To discover domains of the Brillouin zone that could host over-barrier confined states a criterion is proposed based on comparing bulk electron energy spectra of the semiconductors which the heterostructure is composed of.