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Impact ionization in semiconductors: Effects of high electric fields and high scattering rates

1992; American Physical Society; Volume: 45; Issue: 19 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevb.45.10958

1095-3795

J. Bude, K. Hess, G. J. Iafrate,

Integrated Circuits and Semiconductor Failure Analysis

We present a theory of impact ionization in semiconductors that expands an earlier theory of Kane and includes the effects of high electric fields and high scattering rates on the electron-electron collision process. We show that their combined effect, i.e., the intracollisional field effect and collision broadening, leads to a softening of the threshold energy for impact ionization and a marked increase in the anisotropy of the ionization rate with respect to the direction of the electric field.