Computational issues in the simulation of semiconductor quantum wires

✍ Scribed by A. Trellakis; U. Ravaioli

• Book ID: 104268252
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 267 KB
• Volume: 181
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0045-7825
• DOI: 10.1016/s0045-7825(99)00183-8

✦ Synopsis

This paper introduces the main numerical issues related to the simulation of electronic states in highly con®ned semiconductor systems. A typical example is the semiconductor quantum wire, where double size quantization con®nes carriers on the cross-section of a conduction channel. We introduce details of the numerical approach for the solution of the coupled Poisson/Schr odinger equation system that describe the quantum system and outline an original iteration approach that uses a predictor±corrector procedure for convergence of the outer iteration. The numerical approach is illustrated by a number of examples for quantum wire structures based on the GaAs/AlGaAs and the Si/SiO 2 material systems. The simulations for Si-based structures are interesting to understand the limit of scalability of traditional integrated devices in the plane transverse to the conduction channel. It is also shown that a quasi± monomode Si quantum wire is in principle possible at room temperature.