Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2011
A computationally efficient method for the determination of the Green's function (GF) of an ideal semi-infinite semiconductor crystal within the first-principles TB-LMTO approach is developed. Our sample is described by a semi-infinite stack of principal layers with only nearestneighbor interaction between them. The projection of the GF of the ideal semi-infinite crystal onto the top principal layer is the surface GF (SGF), which is evaluated from the condition of removal invariance: by adding (removing) a principal layer of bulk atoms to (from) the semi-infinite crystal we recover the same semi-infinite crystal. This approach avoids the knowledge of the bulk GF and the surface-normal k-integration common in other treatments. Our method is illustrated on the evaluation of k11-resolved densities of states, both on the surface and deep in the sample, for the (110) and (001) faces of typical elemental and AIIIBV semiconductors.