The theory of shot noise in the space-charge-limited diffusive conduction regime

Abstract

As is well known, the fluctuations from a stable stationary nonequilibrium state are described by a linearized nonhomogeneous Boltzmann-Langevin equation. The stationary state itself may be described by a nonlinear Boltzmann equation. The ways of its linearization sometimes seem to be not unique. We argue that there is actually a unique way to obtain a linear equation for the fluctuations. In the present paper we treat as an example an analytical theory of nonequilibrium shot noise in a diffusive conductor under the space charge limited regime. Our approach is compared with that of Schomerus, Mishchenko and Beenakker [Phys. Rev. B 60, 5839 (1999)]. We find some difference between the present theory and the approach of their paper and discuss a possible origin of the difference. We believe that it is related to the fundamentals of the theory of fluctuation phenomena in a nonequilibrium electron gas.