Influence of carrier-temperature gradients on the transport of hot carriers across semiconductor junctions

Abstract

On the basis of the hydrodynamic model the transport of hot carriers in the p-i-n diode is investigated over a large scale of reverse-bias voltage. the electric field distribution and the total current density which we obtained by both the drift-diffusion model and the hydrodynamic model are approximately identical before the breakdown region. So, the electric field distribution is not severely perturbed by the hot-carrier effects before the onset of the breakdown mechanism. However, the solutions of the minority carrier distribution and the minority carrier current density are significantly different around the edges of space-charge regions due to the carrier-temperature gradients. At sufficient reverse bias, the diffusion of minority carriers (generation in neutral regions) is found to be basically influenced by the carrier-temperature gradient rather than the carrier-concentration gradient as known from the drift-diffusion theory.