Influence of electron-electron scattering on transport characteristics in monolayer graphene

The influence of electron-electron scattering on the distribution function and transport characteristics of intrinsic monolayer graphene is investigated via an ensemble Monte Carlo simulation. Due to the linear dispersion relation in the vicinity of the Dirac points, it is found that pair-wise collisions in graphene do not conserve the ensemble average velocity in contrast to conventional semiconductors with parabolic energy bands. Numerical results indicate that electron-electron scattering can lead to a decrease in the low field mobility by more than a factor of 2 for moderate electron densities. The corresponding degradation in the saturation velocity is more modest at around 15%. At high densities, the impact gradually diminishes due to increased degeneracy. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3483612]