On the Carrier Mobility in Forward-Biased Semiconductor Barriers

A simple one-speed solution to the Boltzmann equation is used to evaluate the mobility and diffusion coefficient for carriers in forward-biased semiconductor barriers. The analysis shows that although the average kinetic energy of carriers remains near thermal equilibrium, the mobility and diffusion coefficient are strongly reduced by the built-in field. Conventional macroscopic transport equations, which treat the carrier mobility and diffusion coefficient as single valued functions of the kinetic energy will improperly treat transport in forward-biased barriers. The results are important for the careful analysis of metal-semiconductor and heterojunction diodes.© 1995 American Institute of Physics