Carrier heating effects on transport phenomena in intrinsic semiconductor thin films

Abstract

The excess of nonequilibrium charge carriers due to heating by electric fields influences substantially the electron heat-diffusion and the carrier current density in thin film semiconductors. With the assumption of hole and phonon thermal equilibrium, the current density for electrons and holes and electron heat flux in the semiconductor thin films are calculated analytically taking into account the contribution of the nonequilibrium of carriers and the electron temperature. By using the continuity equations for the carrier densities and energy balance equation with appropriate boundary conditions at the surfaces of the sample, we find that the current density and electron heat flux depend substantially on the size of the sample.