Negative differential resistance associated with hot phonons

Dyson, A.; Ridley, B. K.

Abstract

We predict the existence of a hot-phonon negative differential resistance (NDR) in GaN. We show that this is a consequence of a wave-vector dependence of lifetime caused by the effect of coupled plasmon-phonons. Anti-screened long-wavelength modes have shorter lifetimes, screened shorter-wavelength modes have longer lifetimes, the boundary between them being determined by the temperature-dependent Landau damping. The higher density of screened modes means that the average lifetime is of order of the lifetime of the bare phonon. Its increase with electron temperature (field) is responsible for the NDR. We also find that the momentum relaxation rate (MRR) associated with the absorption of phonons can be negative in some circumstances, which can be seen to be a consequence of the non-uniform distribution of hot phonons in wave-vector space. We also point out that the ultra-short lifetimes sometimes deduced from experiment should more properly be regarded as electron energy- relaxation times.

Citation

Dyson, A., & Ridley, B. K. (2012). Negative differential resistance associated with hot phonons. Journal of applied physics, 112(6), 063707. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4754012

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 1, 2012
• Online Publication Date: Sep 20, 2012
• Publication Date: Sep 15, 2012
• Deposit Date: Nov 13, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 18, 2018
• Journal: Journal Of Applied Physics
• Print ISSN: 0021-8979
• Electronic ISSN: 1089-7550
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 112
• Issue: 6
• Article Number: 063707
• Pages: 063707
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4754012
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/467381
• Publisher URL: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.4754012