Self-Sustained Current Oscillations in the Kinetic Theory of Semiconductor Superlattices Articles uri icon

publication date

  • November 2009

start page

  • 7689

end page

  • 7705

issue

  • 20

volume

  • 228

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0021-9991

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1090-2716

abstract

  • We present the first numerical solutions of a kinetic theory description of self-sustained current oscillations in n-doped semiconductor superlattices. The governing equation is a single-miniband Boltzmann-Poisson transport equation with a BGK (Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook) collision term. Appropriate boundary conditions for the distribution function describe electron injection in the contact regions. These conditions seamlessly become Ohm's law at the injecting contact and the zero charge boundary condition at the receiving contact when integrated over the wave vector. The time-dependent model is numerically solved for the distribution function by using the deterministic Weighted Particle Method. Numerical simulations are used to ascertain the convergence of the method. The numerical results confirm the validity of the Chapman-Enskog perturbation method used previously to derive generalized drift-diffusion equations for high electric fields because they agree very well with numerical solutions thereof.