Abstract

High-electric-field transport has been studied for some three decades. In recent years it has become of much more interest due to the advent of semiconductor devices on the micrometer and submicrometer dimensional scale. Theoretically, such hot-carrier transport has been discussed primarily in terms of the Boltzmann equation. However, semiconductor transport in high electric fields is a classical example of a far-from-equlibrium system. On the short-time scales appropriate to the submicrometer dimensions, the Boltzmann equation ceases to have general validity, and more exact approaches have been sought.

© 1985 Optical Society of America