Session D18 - Semiconductor Transport.
FOCUS session, Monday afternoon, March 18
116, Indiana Convention Center
Collective impact ionization has been used by Hjalmarson et al.(H. Hjalmarson, F. Zutavern, G. Loubriel, A. Baca, and D. Wake, Sandia Report SAND93-3972(1996).) to explain the lock-on effect observed in GaAs photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS's). The basic principle of collective impact ionization is that, at high carrier density, carrier-carrier interactions increase the impact ionization probability by causing an increase in the fractional number of carriers with energies above the the impact ionization threshold energy. In this presentation, we will extend this theory to describe electrical breakdown of solid insulators. We will analyze the Monte Carlo steady state solutions of the Boltzmann equation for a model material to describe and illustrate our breakdown theory. This theory allows us to define not only the lock-on field but also the intrinsic breakdown field for insulating materials in general. Results for GaAs and Si will be discussed.