Electron-hole plasmas in semiconductors

Electron-hole (e-h) plasmas are found in high speed, high power semiconductor switches and oscillators. Their properties are used to describe the operation of high-gain photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS), resonant tunneling diodes, Read diodes, impact ionization avalanche transit time (IMPATT) devices, and Gunn oscillators. Models for electronic polarizability, plasma resonances, transit time effects, and plasma cooling in diodes, transistors, 2-dimensional field effect transistors (FET), and quantum wires must reach beyond single particle interactions and include collective, many-body effects and hydrodynamic equations to obtain reasonable agreement with measurements. Despite the radical differences between the physics of semiconductors and gases, the current filaments in high gain PCSS are strikingly similar to those found in gas breakdown switches.