Energy relaxation by hot two-dimensional carriers in zero magnetic field

Abstract

Abstract This chapter considers the energy relaxation of two-dimensional (2-D) carriers in low-dimensional devices by the emission of acoustic and optical phonons. It starts with an introduction to the basic principles, followed by a review of the techniques used to study the energy relaxation by 2-D carriers, including transport, optical, and direct phonon emission experiments. It goes on to present, in a tutorial style, the theory of phonon emission by 2-D carriers, and compares the theoretical predictions with measurements. To explain some differences between experiment and predictions of the basic theory, the effects of acoustic anisotropy, confinement and dynamic screening, the emission of plasmon-optic phonon coupled modes and the effect of strong disorder on the acoustic phonon emission are also discussed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relevance of the results to the performance of practical electronic devices.