Abstract
Collective impact ionization has been used to explain lock-on in semi-insulating GaAs under high-voltage bias. We have used this theory to study some of the steady-state properties of lock-on current filaments. In steady state, the heat gained from the field is exactly compensated by the cooling due to phonon scattering. In the simplest approximation, the carrier distribution approaches a quasi-equilibrium Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. In this report, we examine the validity of this approximation. We find that this approximation leads to a filament carrier density that is much lower than the high density needed to achieve a quasi-equilibrium distribution. Further work on this subject is in progress.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1491-1496 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science |
Volume | 28 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2000 |
Keywords
- Collective impact ionization
- Lock-on
- Photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS)