Elastic Impurity Scattering in Double-Barrier Resonant Tunneling Structures.

摘要

Fermi's golden rule is used to calculate the electron elastic scattering rate due to a single charged impurity in the quantum well region of a double-barrier resonant tunneling structure at zero applied electric field. The impurity is modeled by a screened Coulomb potential, and the scattering rate out of a conduction band eigenstate is calculated as a function of the initial-state electron wave vector and the impurity position. In a finite crystal with a random distribution of impurities, the scattering of resonant electrons can be dominated by impurities in the quantum well region. For a double-barrier structure embedded in an infinite crystal, impurity scattering of resonant electrons is always dominated by impurities outside the quantum well region. (RH)