ELECTRON TRANSPORT IN SUB-MICRON DEVICES (MONTE CARLO, QUANTUM, AHARONOV-BOHM, TRANSISTOR)
Abstract
The invention and refinement of sophisticated fabrication techniques such as the Molecular Beam Epitaxy and Electron Beam Lithography have introduced a new era of structural architecture in semiconductor devices. Electron transport in modern sub-micron devices is often governed by principles that are not amenable to the drift-diffusion formalism. This thesis explores two such cases where the drift-diffusion description fails; viz. hot-electron phenomena and quantum effects. A Monte Carlo simulation program has been developed to study hot-electron transport. This has helped to establish an analytical technique for evaluating hot-electron transport parameters and also a scheme for coupling Monte Carlo and drift-diffusion models in order to obtain the advantages of each. Additionally, a model for analyzing quantum effects in the ballistic (collisionless) regime has been developed which is presently being used to study many interesting features of quantum transport. On the experimental side, this thesis was involved with the first demonstration of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in semiconductor microstructures. Based on this effect a novel Quantum Interference Transistor (QUIT) has been proposed which is capable of operating with an extremely low speed-power product of about 10('-20) Joules.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
Electrical engineering
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