Hot electrons in semiconductors with long-lived resonance impurity states

Abstract

The nonlinear carrier transport phenomena are considered in the semiconductor doped with the impurities which form the quasi-local electron states. The resonant scattering of carriers by these centres has two aspects, first, the scattering as such, i.e. the change of the carrier flight direction, and second, the long electron residence at the centre during the scattering which leads to the decrease of the free carrier concentration in the band. In this paper the influence of both these sides of the resonant scattering upon the electron transport is considered for the first time. The Boltzmann kinetic equation is not applicable to this case so the special approach has been developed. The possibility of carrier transfer to the resonant centres leads to appearance of the N-shaped parts of the current-voltage curves which is similar to the Gunn effect.