High-field transport and hot electron noise in GaAs from first principles: role of two-phonon scattering

Abstract

High-field charge transport in semiconductors is of fundamental interest and practical importance. While the \textit{ab initio} treatment of low-field transport is well-developed, the treatment of high-field transport is much less so, particularly for multi-phonon processes that are reported to be relevant in GaAs. Here, we report a calculation of the high-field transport properties and current power spectral density (PSD) of hot electrons in GaAs from first principles including on-shell two-phonon (2ph) scattering. The on-shell 2ph scattering rates are found to qualitatively alter the high-field distribution function by increasing both the momentum and energy relaxation rates as well as contributing markedly to intervalley scattering. This finding reconciles a long-standing discrepancy regarding the strength of intervalley scattering in GaAs as inferred from transport and optical studies. The characteristic non-monotonic trend of PSD with electric field is not predicted at this level of theory. Our work shows how \textit{ab initio} calculations of high-field transport and noise may be used as a stringent test of the electron-phonon interaction in semiconductors.

34 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Physical Review B

References in corpus (9)

• Quantum ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials
• Advanced capabilities for materials modelling with Quantum ESPRESSO
• Ab initio Electron Mobility and Polar Phonon Scattering in GaAs
• Electron-Phonon Coupling from $\text{Ab Initio}$ Linear-Response Theory within the $GW$ Method: Correlation-Enhanced Interactions and Superconductivity in Ba${}_{1-x}$K${}_x$BiO${}_3$
• First-principles predictions of Hall and drift mobilities in semiconductors
• First-principles dynamics of electrons and phonons
• Coupled transport of phonons and carriers in semiconductors: A case study of n-doped GaAs
• Magnetotransport in semiconductors and two-dimensional materials from first principles
• Ab initio electron dynamics in high electric fields: accurate predictions of velocity-field curves

Cited by in corpus (4)

• High-throughput screening of 2D materials identifies p-type monolayer WS${}_2$ as potential ultra-high mobility semiconductor
• Two-phonon scattering in non-polar semiconductors: a first-principles study of warm electron transport in Si
• Transport and noise of hot electrons in GaAs using a semi-analytical model of two-phonon polar optical phonon scattering
• High-field charge transport and noise in p-Si from first principles