Dissipative Zener Tunneling in Silicon Semiconductors

Abstract

In the present work studying the dissipative Zener tunneling, we assume the existence of an electric field (acting for finite time intervals) perpendicular to the surface of a parabolic quantum well, and the potential energy of a valence band electron in the well to be that of the usual harmonic oscillator coupled to a phonon bath (ignoring the Brownian motion). As it has been proved for the case of silicon (Si) semiconductor the current density increases with an increase of the electric field strength, and the amount of the increase depends on the effective valence band electron mass as well as on the dissipation parameter γ. Actually, heavy effective valence band electron mass gives lower current density in comparison with light effective valence band electron mass. Furthermore, an increase of the dissipation parameter γ increases the localization of the electron and the current density.