Name:SIMC
Description:Monte Carlo simulation of semi-conductors and nano-structures
Abstract:Investigation of hot - electrons noise in semiconductor compounds provides a well-known example of a problem which has toughly resisted analytic solutions. <br>This is due to the formidable mathematical difficulties that arise when one attempts to solve the Boltzmann equation in the regime of high electron energies, when the system behaviour is markedly nonlinear. The matter is of obvious interest from the technologic perspective due to the progressive miniaturization of semiconductor devices. In addition, the simultaneous interplay between different scattering mechanisms and the external applied fields, together with the peculiar structure of the conduction band at high-energies, can give rise to non-trivial and very intriguing physics. The last years have witnessed a wide success of the Monte Carlo method as a powerful tool to approach such problem.<br> A Monte Carlo (MC) direct simulation of electron motion indeed represents an effective numerical solution of the Boltzmann equation. Despite the large amount of work carried out in order to characterize electron noise in the presence of applied electric fields, the case when a magnetic field is simultaneously present has been seldom addressed. This is probably due to the fact that at the time when most of the MC studies on noise in semiconductor compounds were performed only relatively weak magnetic fields were experimentally available.<br>
Indeed, in order to observe effects competing with those induced by electric fields of the order of several kV/cm, rather intense magnetic field strengths of the order of some T are needed. This is especially true for compounds such as Si having relatively high effective electron masses and thus requiring rather strong magnetic fields in order to exhibit significant cyclotron masses. However, present-day superconductor magnetic field generators allow to produce fields of the order of many T. With these motivations in mind, two of us have recently investigated hot-electron noise in n-GaAs in crossed electric and magnetic fiel

Created:2010-05-01
Last updated:2010-05-01