Transport theory of Schottky barrier diodes

Abstract

A microscopic many-body transport approach for electronic properties of spatially inhomogeneous systems is developed at the fully quantum-mechanical level by means of plane wavelets second quantization representation. It is obtained that current density is determined by the statistically averaged microscopic polarization dependent on the quantized positions and quantized momenta of charge carriers. At the semiclassical level the distribution function of electrons include many-body effects via drift , diffusion and thermionic emission as well as entirely quantum-mechanical tunneling through a Schottky barrier. Dependences of the current versus voltage on the thickness of semiconductor layer, the relaxation times in the neutral region and in the depletion layer, the width of Schottky barrier and the mean free paths are investigated. It is established that ideality factor n is a function of applied voltage V . The value of V at which I-V characteristics acquire an ohmic nature is depended on the parameters of semiconductors.