Nonequilibrium electron-phonon interaction in thin-film thermionic structures

Author

Zeng, Taofang ; Chen, Gang

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. & Aerosp. Eng., California Univ., Los Angeles, CA, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

Aug. 29 1999-Sept. 2 1999

Firstpage

590

Lastpage

593

Abstract

The thermionic cooling processes in double heterojunction structures are investigated in this paper by studying the energy conversion between electrons and phonons based upon the hot electron approximation. An analytical model that includes the nonequilibrium energy exchange between electrons and phonons is developed to predict the performance of double heterojunction thermionic cooling devices. Approximate analytical solutions for the electron and phonon temperature distributions in the double heterojunction structure are obtained. The efficiency, the net cooling power, and the maximum temperature difference are calculated for different device and material parameters.

Keywords

electron-phonon interactions; semiconductor heterojunctions; temperature distribution; thermionic emission; double heterojunction structures; efficiency; energy conversion; hot electron approximation; maximum temperature difference; net cooling power; nonequilibrium electron-phonon interaction; nonequilibrium energy exchange; thermionic cooling processes; thin-film thermionic structures; Analytical models; Charge carrier processes; Cooling; Electrons; Energy conversion; Energy exchange; Heterojunctions; Phonons; Temperature distribution; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Thermoelectrics, 1999. Eighteenth International Conference on

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD, USA

ISSN

1094-2734

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5451-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICT.1999.843458

Filename

843458