Hole-initiated impact ionization and split-off band in Ge, Si, GaAs, InAs, and InGaAs

The significance of the energy splitting in the split-off valence band for calculations of the hole-initiated impact ionization rate has been investigated. To attain this objective, we have computed the ab-initio ionization transition rates in Ge, Si, GaAs, InAs and In0.53Ga0.47As by employing nonlocal and local pseudopotentials with and without spin-orbit interaction, respectively.