Monte Carlo evaluation of energy transport parameters for an accurate high-field energy-balance model of charge transport in GaAs

Hydrodynamic models based on the relaxation time approximation have been widely employed as a means of simulating carrier transport in high field regimes where the standard drift-diffusion equations are no longer accurate. In particular, an Energy-Balance formalism due to Stratton has been successfully applied to device simulations in silicon, allowing accurate determination of high-field effects. Unfortunately, direct application of the standard form of Stratton´s model to semiconductors exhibiting multi-valley transport at high fields (e.g. GaAs) can lead to non-physical results. We will circumvent this weakness in Stratton´s original approach by employing full bandstructure (pseudopotential) Monte Carlo simulation to directly calculate several Energy Transport parameters for the model. We believe that this is the first time that the Monte Carlo technique has been employed for this purpose. As a prototype material we will use GaAs, which exhibits strong multi-valley transport effects electric fields above 4 kV/cm