Modeling how multiple personality electrons (and holes) affect device performance

What is it about?

When electrons (and their counterpart holes) are accelerated by an electric field, they may become susceptible to interesting quantum mechanical phenomena. For example, electrons (or holes) going into certain regions of reciprocal space may switch its quantum state or be in multiple quantum states at once. This tends to occur when the quantum states are close in energy at crossing or anti-crossing points. This work focuses on simulating this process and incorporating these multi-state electrons (or holes) into Monte Carlo simulations of semiconductor devices.

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Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The Full Band Monte Carlo (FBMC) method is one of the most established methods for simulating semiconductor devices operating at high voltages. However, the standard FBMC method has difficulty with certain materials with many band crossings and anti-crossings in reciprocal space. Thus, we have developed a method to overcome this difficulty and extend the use of the FBMC method to these materials.