Comparison of inelastic and quasielastic scattering effects on nonlinear electron transport in quantum wires

When impurity and phonon scattering coexist, the Boltzmann equation has been solved accurately for nonlinear electron transport in a quantum wire. Based on the calculated nonequilibrium distribution of electrons in momentum space, the scattering effects on both the nondifferential (for a fixed dc field) and differential (for a fixed temperature) mobilities of electrons as functions of temperature and dc field have been demonstrated. The nondifferential mobility of electrons is switched from a linearly increasing function of temperature to a paraboliclike temperature dependence as the quantum wire is tuned from an impurity-dominated system to a phonon-dominated one, as described by Fang et al. [Phys. Rev. B 78, 205403 (2008)]. In addition, a maximum has been obtained in the dc field dependence of the differential mobility of electrons. The low-field differential mobility is dominated by the impurity scattering, whereas the high-field differential mobility is limited by the phonon scattering as described by Hauser et al. [Semicond. Sci. Technol. 9, 951 (1994)]. Once a quantum wire is dominated by quasielastic scattering, the peak of the momentum-space distribution function becomes sharpened and both tails of the equilibrium electron distribution centered at the Fermi edges are raised by the dc field after a redistribution of the electrons is fulfilled in a symmetric way in the low-field regime. If a quantum wire is dominated by inelastic scattering, on the other hand, the peak of the momentum-space distribution function is unchanged while both shoulders centered at the Fermi edges shift leftward correspondingly with increasing dc field through an asymmetric redistribution of the electrons even in low-field regime as described by Wirner et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 2609 (1993)]. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3373413]