Electron transport in semiconductor superlattices

Abstract

In this paper, we rigorously derive a diffusion model for semiconductor superlattices, starting from a kinetic description of electron transport at the microscopic scale. Electron transport in the superlattice is modelled by a collisionless Boltzmann equation subject to a periodic array of localized scatters modeling the periodic heterogeneities of the material. The limit of a large number of periodicity cells combined with a large-time asymptotics leads to a homogenized diffusion equation which belongs to the class of so-called “SHE” models (for Spherical Harmonics Expansion). The rigorous convergence proof relies on fine estimates on the operator modeling the localized scatters.