Heating of a degenerate electron ensemble in a well of compound semiconductors at low lattice temperatures

Abstract

At low lattice temperatures, an ensemble of electrons exhibits some specific features which are hardly observed for higher lattice temperatures. Considering a two-dimensional ensemble of non-equilibrium electrons in a quantum well of compound semiconductors, the dependence of the effective electron temperature upon the electric field has been analysed under the condition when the lattice temperature is low. The aim of the analysis has been to assess how does the degeneracy of the ensemble and the piezoelectric interaction of the electrons, result in changes in the electron temperature characteristics at low lattice temperatures. Numerical results are obtained for quantum wells of InSb, GaAs and GaN which are potentially used for the device purpose. The assessment is made through the comparison of the results obtained from the present analysis with other theoretical and experimental results which are available in the literature. The analysis predicts that the low-temperature features result in significant changes in the characteristics. In the absence of appropriate experimental data in the literature, any conclusive comparison of the theoretical results of the present analysis with the experiment could hardly be made. However, a rather cursory comparison for the wells of GaAs with the indirectly obtained effective temperature characteristics of the electrons shows some qualitative similarity, particularly for the regime of low electric fields. The results of the present approximate analysis being interesting, it holds promise for further work in the same field.