Impact Ionization and High-Field Electron Transport in GaN

Abstract

Ab initio band structure calculations were performed for GaAs, GaN, and ZnS within density functional theory to determine the impact ionization rate and the high-field electron transport characteristics. The drift velocity, mean kinetic energy, valley populations, and the ionization coefficient are gained from full-band ensemble Monte Carlo simulations. A pronounced influence of the band structure is found for all materials. Results are shown here for GaN.