World Applied Programming, Vol (1), No (5), December 2011.

305-308
ISSN: 2222-2510
2011 WAP journal. www.waprogramming.com

Electronic Transport Properties in InN Submicron n+-n-n+

Diode with InGaN Heterojunction Cathode
H. Arabshahi
Physics Department
Faculty of Sciences, Payame Noor University, P. O. Box 19395-3697
Tehran, Iran
arabshahi@um.ac.ir

Abstract: Ensemble Monte Carlo simulations have been performed to model electron transport in wurtzite phase InN
diode with a InGaN heterojunction cathode. The hot electron injection through the heterojunction cathode was shown to
not only increase the current density, but also improve the electron transport in the interface layer by inducing a higher
electron density to the interface layer. Our analysis has also shown that the mean drift velocity for electrons in the
channel is about 2.4105 ms-1 at bias 4 V. Mean drift velocity in channel decrease with temperature and reach to
saturated value about 1.55105 ms-1.
Key word: Ensemble Monte Carlo wurtzite heterojunction mean drift velocity
I.

INTRODUCTION

The InN and other group-III nitrides have two main uses in commercial devices, providing bright LEDs emitting at ultravioletblue green wavelengths for CD-ROM and sensor applications and heterojunction field effect transistors which can sustain high
current densities at elevated temperatures. It has been shown that InN has large peak electron velocity and can be an important
candidate for high frequency application. A wide energy band gap leads to a low intrinsic carrier concentration, which enables a
more precies control of free carrier concentration over a wide range of temperatures, and hence the devices made of this kind of
material will be operable at high temperatures with large breakdown voltage. Today, InN is used in many electronic and
optoelectronic applications such as light emitting diodes (LED's), laser systems [1] and hetero-junction solar cells, gas sensors and
MEMS [2-8]. To date, no investigations have been reported on behavior of electron transport in InN n+-n-n+. We investigate effect
of applied voltage and temperature upon electron transport in InN n+-n-n+ diode. In order to evaluation of electronic transport
inside n+-n-n+ structure of InN a three valley Monte Carlo model is regarded for simulation of electrons trajectories inside a length
of n+-n-n+ structure. Our analysis has shown that electron reach to more drift velocity in the InN structure than GaN. Also
saturation mean drift velocity for electrons in channel of InN and GaN are about 1 and 2, respectively at bias 4 V. Mean drift
velocity in channel decrease with temperature in both structure and reach to saturated value about 1 and 2 for InN and GaN,
respectively.
Recently, there has been considerable interest in electron transport in submicron InN devices for possible high-frequency and highspeed applications. As the transit time of electrons in a device becomes comparable with, or less than, the mean free time between
collisions, the electrons will move more or less ballistically in the device, and will obtain very high velocities. Simulations of this
phenomenon in a diode structure have so far only been carried out for a very small anode voltage. However, simulations for higher
anode voltages are needed in view of the situation in practical devices where engineering problems call for anode voltages of no
less than about the Schottky barrier height or the p-n junction barrier height. The boundary conditions are important as they have
significant influence on the space-charge-limited current flow which becomes dominant in submicron devices. In this paper we
report an ensemble Monte Carlo simulation of the electron transport in a submicron InN diode with a highly-doped n+-layer
employed as cathode and anode. The anode voltage applied to the diode ranges from 1 V to 4 V.
II.

SIMIULATION MODEL AND RESULTS

An ensemble Monte Carlo simulation has been carried out to simulate the electron transport properties in InN based n+nn+
diodes. The method simulates the motion of charge carriers through the device by following the progress of 104 super particles.
These particles are propagated classically between collisions according to their velocity, effective mass and the prevailing field.
The selection of the propagation time, scattering mechanism and other related quantities is achieved by generating random
numbers and using these numbers to select, for example, a scattering mechanism. Our self-consistent Monte Carlo simulation was
performed using an analytical band structure model consisting of three non-parabolic ellipsoidal valleys. The scattering
mechanisms considered in the model are acoustic, polar optical, ionized impurity, piezoelectric and nonequivalent intervalley
scattering. The nonequivalent intervalley scattering is between the , U and K. Acoustic and piezoelectric scattering are assumed

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elastic and the absorption and emission rates are combined under the equipartition approximation, which is valid for lattice
temperatures above 77 K. Elastic ionized impurity scattering is described using the screened Coulomb potential of the
Brooks{Herring model. Steady-state results of high field transport studies have been obtained for lattice temperatures up to 600
K, in order to gain some insight into the hot carrier transport and the energy distribution function that would be generated in the
gate-drain region of a power field effect transistor. The overall device length is 1 m in the x-direction. A lightly-doped active
layer (n-layer) is sandwiched between the cathode and anode layers, which are abruptly doped with a donor density of 1024 m-3.
The length of the active layer is either 0.6 or 0.4 m. Approximately, 1024 particles are used in the simulation and lattice
temperatures up to 600 K are considered. The applied anode voltage Va is varied between 1 and 5 V to investigate the effects of
field variations on the transport properties. This range of voltages is large enough that velocity overshoot and intervalley transfer
effects occur. Figures 1a and 1b show the distributions of the electron energy and the electron velocity component parallel to the
electric field, respectively. The applied anode voltage is 3 V and the Al content x is 0.2. The solid line in figure 1a shows the
bottom of the conduction band. Also shown in the same figure by broken line is the bottom of the upper valley. The excess energy
above the bottom of the conduction band represents the kinetic energy of the lower-valley electrons. There is apparently no uppervalley electron present for this anode voltage. It is seen from the figure that, in the vicinity of the cathode, the majority of
electrons in the active layer have a kinetic energy almost equal to the band discontinuity Ec and a velocity almost equal to the
corresponding ballistic one. However, it is also seen that quite a number of electrons have distributed energies and velocities. This
tendency becomes even more pronounced with increasing distance from the cathode. This is mainly caused by the polar optical
phonon scattering. Some electrons come backscattered from the anode n+-layer. However, the number of such electrons is rather
small if the applied voltage Va is not so high as to allow the intervalley transfer of electrons to take place. This was verified by
comparing the distribution of figure 1a with the one in which all scattering factor are intentionally removed from the active layer.
One might suspect why the predominantly forward scatterings by the polar optical phonon disturb the ballistic motion of electrons
as shown in figure 1. This is due to the low electric field present which is not effective to accelerate the electrons to the forward
direction once they are scattered by large angles. The mean electron velocity during transit in the active layer is about 5105 ms-1
in the case of figure 1, and it increases to about 6105 ms-1 with the increase of the applied voltage to 5 V, as will be shown later.

Fig. 1. (a) Distribution of electron energy and profile of bottom of conduction band and upper valleys, (b) Distribution of
component of electron velocity parallel to electric field.

Figure 2 shows the current-voltage characteristics of the diodes having a usual InN Ohmic cathode. It is seen in the figure that, at
low applied voltages, the current shows a monotonic decrease with the increase of the In content. This is due to the fact that the
current is mainly limited by the potential barrier associated with the band bending of the InGaN at the heterojunction; the larger
the In content, the larger the potential barrier, while, at high voltages, the current increases at first and then decreases with the
increase of In content. This is caused by two opposing groups of factors that contribute to control the current. One is that, at high
anode voltages, the potential barrier at InGaN is negligible for all values of x whereas a higher In content yields higher initial
electron velocities. The other is that the quantum mechanical reflection at the heterojunction increases with increasing x, and that
a decreasing value of (Va-Ec) with increasing x, which appears mostly across the active layer, has an adverse effect on the
acceleration of electrons in the active layer.

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0.2

x = 0.1

-2

Current density (*10 Am )

0.3

0.1

x = 0.2
x = 0.4

0.0

-0.1
0.2

0.3

Anode voltage (* 10

-1

V)

Fig. 2. Current-density versus anode voltage characteristics of diodes having different In content x.
In figure 3, the mean electron velocities, which were evaluated by taking an average of the velocities of all the electrons in the
active layer, and which may be a more direct figure of merit for the logic switching speed or the frequency response of the
devices, are shown for different in contents. Within the range of the parameters employed in the present simulation, the mean
electron velocity at x = 0.2 shows the highest value of 6105 ms-1 at the anode voltage of 5V, which is about 1.3 times bigger
than the highest value for the Ohmic electrode. It is seen that the mean electron velocity increases less steeply, or even decreases,
for high anode voltages. This is due partly to the non-parabolicity of the conduction band and partly to the intervalley transfer for
electrons taking place when the anode voltage exceeds 4 V.

Fig. 3. Mean electron velocity versus anode voltage characteristics of diodes having different in content x.
III. CONCLUSION
In this article, the results of simulations of electron transport in InN n+nn+ diodes have been reported. The diodes have highlydoped n+-layers serving as the cathode and anode. The anode voltages Va ranged from 1 to 5 V and lattice temperatures between
300 and 600 K have been considered. The electrons injected from the cathode initially travel quasi-ballistically but there is
substantial transfer to the upper satellite valleys as the anode is approached, resulting in a reduced average electron velocity in that
region. The simulation results show also that the mean electron velocity in the active layer is larger than the one with an n+-InN
cathode if the in content x is suitably chosen. A large in content x certainly gives rise to a large initial electron velocity; however, it
does not directly contribute to a high mean electron velocity if the electric field is not sufficiently strong in the active layer.

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