Rapid hot-electron energy relaxation in lattice-matched InAlN/AlN/GaN heterostructures
Abstract
Hot-electron energy relaxation is theoretically studied for a typical lattice-matched InAlN/AlN/GaN heterostructure, including effects of non-equilibrium phonons and screening from the mobile electrons in the GaN channel. A dramatic fall of relaxation time occurs at low electron temperatures (<500 K) due to the exponentially increased phonon generation as well as fast decreased screening and hot-phonon effect. At high electron temperatures (>1500 K), on the other hand, the hot-phonon effect is very weak because of short optical phonon lifetimes (experimental value ∼0.1 ps), and the electron relaxation is dictated by the screened electron-phonon interactions which alone yield a nearly constant relaxation time ∼0.1 ps. With increasingly fast optical-phonon decay, therefore the high-temperature electron relaxation time decreases slowly with the electron temperature, with its limiting value set entirely by the screened electron-phonon interactions alone. The calculated dependence of the relaxation time on the electron temperature and the high-temperature relaxation times ∼0.1 ps are in good agreement with experimental results.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Feb 11, 2013
- Source ID
- 10.1063/1.4792276
Entities
People
- A. Dyson
- Brian Kidd Ridley
- J.-z. Zhang
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- University of Essex
- University of Hull