A weak Galerkin finite element method for 1D semiconductor device simulation models

Abstract

In this paper, we study a weak Galerkin (WG) finite element method for semiconductor device simulations. We consider the one-dimensional drift–diffusion (DD) and high-field (HF) models, which involves not only first derivative convection terms but also second derivative diffusion terms, as well as a coupled Poisson potential equation. The main difficulties in the analysis include the treatment of the nonlinearity and coupling of the models. The weak Galerkin finite element method adopts piecewise polynomials of degree k for the approximations of electron concentration and electric potential in the interior of elements, and piecewise polynomials of degree k+1 for the discrete weak derivative space. The optimal order error estimates in a discrete H1 norm and the standard L2 norm are derived. Numerical experiments are presented to illustrate our theoretical analysis. Moreover, numerical schemes also work out for the discontinuous diffusion coefficient problems.