Monte Carlo Studies of Nonlinear Electron Transport in III-V semiconductors
Abstract
Electron transport in III-V semiconductors, especially the Ga/As/ AlGaAs material systems, is studied in various nonequilibrium situations. Throughout the study, a Monte Carlo simulation method is used for the analysis of transport properties in the semiclassical Boltzmann transport picture. The present work essentially consists of two aspects. The first topic is hot electron transport in GaAs, focusing on the electron impact ionization effects. The dependence of impact ionization rates on the details of the band structure is investigated by using two (local and nonlocal) pseudopotential methods. The spatial evolution of the ionization rate and the average electron energy are studied in nonuniform fields characteristic of p+-n junctions. The effects of field fluctuations due to the random distribution of dopants are studied as well. The possibility of new GaAs electron-emitting diodes is explored numerically and compared with the corresponding Si devices. The second aspect deals with the effects of conduction band discontinuities on the electron transport. In particular, one-dimensional heterostructures are modeled to study the nonlinear transport across heterointerfaces.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1988
- Accession Number
- ADA199700
Entities
People
- K. W. Kim
Organizations
- University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign