This book provides readers with a variety of tools to address the challenges posed by hot carrier degradation, one of today’s most complicated reliability issues in semiconductor devices. Coverage includes an explanation of carrier transport within devices and book-keeping of how they acquire energy (“become hot”), interaction of an ensemble of colder and hotter carriers with defect precursors, which eventually leads to the creation of a defect, and a description of how these defects interact with the device, degrading its performance.
This review volume is based primarily on the balance equation approach developed since 1984. It provides a simple and analytical description about hot electron transport, particularly, in semiconductors with higher carrier density where the carrier-carrier collision is much stronger than the single particle scattering. The steady state and time-dependent hot electron transport, thermal noise, hot phonon effect, the memory effect, and other related subjects of charge carriers under strong electric fields are reviewed. The application of Zubarev's nonequilibrium statistical operator to hot electron transport and its equivalence to the balance equation method are also presented. For semiconductors with very low carrier density, the problem can be regarded as a single carrier transport which will be treated non-perturbatively by the nonequilibrium Green's function technique and the path integral theory. The last part of this book consists of a chapter on the dynamic conductivity and the shot noise suppression of a double-carrier resonant tunneling system.
Under certain conditions electrons in a semiconductor become much hotter than the surrounding crystal lattice. When this happens, Ohm's Law breaks down: current no longer increases linearly with voltage and may even decrease. Hot electrons have long been a challenging problem in condensed matter physics and remain important in semiconductor research. Recent advances in technology have led to semiconductors with submicron dimensions, where electrons can be confined to two (quantum well), one (quantum wire), or zero (quantum dot) dimensions. In these devices small voltages heat electrons rapidly, inducing complex nonlinear behavior; the study of hot electrons is central to their further development. This book is the only comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of hot electrons. Intended for both established researchers and graduate students, it gives a complete account of the historical development of the subject, together with current research and future trends, and covers the physics of hot electrons in bulk and low-dimensional device technology. The contributions are from leading scientists in the field and are grouped broadly into five categories: introduction and overview; hot electron-phonon interactions and ultra-fast phenomena in bulk and two-dimensional structures; hot electrons in quantum wires and dots; hot electron tunneling and transport in superlattices; and novel devices based on hot electron transport.
A comprehensive account of the latest developments in the rapidly expanding area of Semiconductor Technology. Main topics covered include real space transfer/heterostructures, ultrafast studies, optical studies, transport theory, devices, ballistic transport, scattering processes and hot phonons, tunnelling, far infrared and magnetic field studies and impact ionization/noise/chaos. Other aspects include the use of femtosecond lasers in investigating transient hot carrier effects on femtosecond timescales, magnetotransport and carrier-carrier interactions.
The papers contained in the volume represent lectures delivered as a 1983 NATO ASI, held at Urbino, Italy. The lecture series was designed to identify the key submicron and ultrasubmicron device physics, transport, materials and contact issues. Nonequilibrium transport, quantum transport, interfacial and size constraints issues were also highlighted. The ASI was supported by NATO and the European Research Office. H. L. Grubin D. K. Ferry C. Jacoboni v CONTENTS MODELLING OF SUB-MICRON DEVICES.................. .......... 1 E. Constant BOLTZMANN TRANSPORT EQUATION... ... ...... .................... 33 K. Hess TRANSPORT AND MATERIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR SUBMICRON DEVICES. . .. . . . . .. . . . .. . .. . .... ... .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . 45 H. L. Grubin EPITAXIAL GROWTH FOR SUB MICRON STRUCTURES.................. 179 C. E. C. Wood INSULATOR/SEMICONDUCTOR INTERFACES.......................... 195 C. W. Wilms en THEORY OF THE ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE OF SEMICONDUCTOR SURFACES AND INTERFACES......................................... 223 C. Calandra DEEP LEVELS AT COMPOUND-SEMICONDUCTOR INTERFACES........... 253 W. Monch ENSEMBLE MONTE CARLO TECHNIqUES............................. 289 C. Jacoboni NOISE AND DIFFUSION IN SUBMICRON STRUCTURES................. 323 L. Reggiani SUPERLATTICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 . . . . . . . . . . . . K. Hess SUBMICRON LITHOGRAPHY 373 C. D. W. Wilkinson and S. P. Beaumont QUANTUM EFFECTS IN DEVICE STRUCTURES DUE TO SUBMICRON CONFINEMENT IN ONE DIMENSION.... ....................... 401 B. D. McCombe vii viii CONTENTS PHYSICS OF HETEROSTRUCTURES AND HETEROSTRUCTURE DEVICES..... 445 P. J. Price CORRELATION EFFECTS IN SHORT TIME, NONS TAT I ONARY TRANSPORT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477 . . . . . . . . . . . . J. J. Niez DEVICE-DEVICE INTERACTIONS............ ...................... 503 D. K. Ferry QUANTUM TRANSPORT AND THE WIGNER FUNCTION................... 521 G. J. Iafrate FAR INFRARED MEASUREMENTS OF VELOCITY OVERSHOOT AND HOT ELECTRON DYNAMICS IN SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES............. 577 S. J. Allen, Jr.
This volume contains invited and contributed papers of the Ninth International Conference on Hot Carriers in Semiconductors (HCIS-9), held July 3 I-August 4, 1995 in Chicago, Illinois. In all, the conference featured 15 invited oral presentations, 60 contributed oral presentations, and 105 poster presentations, and an international contingent of 170 scientists. As in recent conferences, the main themes of the conference were related to nonlinear transport in semiconductor heterojunctions and included Bloch oscillations, laser diode structures, and femtosecond spectroscopy. Interesting questions related to nonlinear transport, size quantization, and intersubband scattering were addressed that are relevant to the new quantum cascade laser. Many lectures were geared toward quantum wires and dots and toward nanostructures and mesoscopic systems in general. It is expected that such research will open new horizons to nonlinear transport studies. An attempt was made by the program committee to increase the number of presen tations related directly to devices. The richness of nonlocal hot electron effects that were discussed as a result, in our opinion, suggests that future conferences should further encourage reports on such device research. On behalf of the Program and International Advisory Committees, we thank the participants, who made the conference a successful and pleasant experience, and the support of the Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, and the Beckman Institute of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We are also indebted to Mrs. Sara Starkey and Mrs.
The 1986 Advanced Study Institute on "The Physics of the two-Dimen sional Electron Gas" took place at the Conference Centre liTer Helme", close to Oostende (Belgium), from June 2 till 16, 1986. We were motivated to organize this Advanced Study Institute in view of the recent experimental and theoretical progress in the study of the two-dimensional electron gas. An additional motivation was our own theore tical interest in cyclotron resonance in two-dimensional electron systems at our institute. It is my pleasure to thank several instances and people who made this Advanced Study Institute possible. First of all, the sponsor of the Advanced Study Institute, the NATO Scientific Committee. Furthermore, the co sponsors: Agfa Gevaert, Bell Telephone Mfg. Co. N.V., Burroughs Belgium. Control Data. Digital Equipment Corporation, Esso Belgium. European Research Office (USA). Kredietbank. National Science Foundation (USA). Special thanks are due to the members of the Program Committee and the members of the Organizing Committee. I would also like to thank Mrs. H. Evans for typing assistance.
Nonequilibrium hot charge carriers play a crucial role in the physics and technology of semiconductor nanostructure devices. This book, one of the first on the topic, discusses fundamental aspects of hot carriers in quasi-two-dimensional systems and the impact of these carriers on semiconductor devices. The work will provide scientists and device engineers with an authoritative review of the most exciting recent developments in this rapidly moving field. It should be read by all those who wish to learn the fundamentals of contemporary ultra-small, ultra-fast semiconductor devices. - Topics covered include - Reduced dimensionality and quantum wells - Carrier-phonon interactions and hot phonons - Femtosecond optical studies of hot carrier - Ballistic transport - Submicron and resonant tunneling devices
A thorough reference work bridging the gap between contemporary and traditional approaches to noise problems Noise in semiconductor devices refers to any unwanted signal or disturbance in the device that degrades performance. In semiconductor devices, noise is attributed to hot-electron effects. Current advances in information technology have led to the development of ultrafast devices that are required to provide low-noise, high-speed performance. Microwave Noise in Semiconductor Devices considers available data on the speed versus noise trade-off and discusses optimal solutions in semiconductors and semiconductor structures. These solutions are of direct interest in the research and development for fast, efficient, and reliable communications systems. As the only book of its kind accessible to practicing engineers, the material is divided into four parts-the kinetic theory of fluctuations and its corollaries, the methods of measurements of microwave noise, low-dimensional structures, and, finally, devices. With over 100 illustrations presenting recent experimental data for up-to-date semiconductor structures designed for ultrafast electronics, together with results of microscopic simulation where available, these examples, tables, and references offer a full comprehension of electronic processes and fluctuation in dimensionally quantizing structures. Bridging the apparent gap between the microscopic approach and the equivalent circuit approach, Microwave Noise in Semiconductor Devices considers microwave fluctuation phenomena and noise in terms of ultrafast kinetic processes specific to modern quantum-well structures. Scientists in materials science, semiconductor and solid-state physics, electronic engineers, and graduate students will all appreciate this indispensable review of contemporary and future microwave and high-speed electronics.
