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Absolute negative conductivity and spontaneous current generation in semiconductor superlattices with hot electrons

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posted on 2006-04-12, 15:39 authored by E.H. Cannon, Feodor Kusmartsev, Kirill Alekseev, D.K. Campbell
We study electron transport through a semiconductor superlattice subject to an electric field parallel to and a magnetic field perpendicular to the growth axis. Using a single miniband, semiclassical balance equation model with both elastic and inelastic scattering, we find that (1) the current-voltage characteristic becomes multistable in a large magnetic field; and (2) "hot" electrons display novel features in their current-voltage characteristics, including absolute negative conductivity (ANC) and, for sufficiently strong magnetic fields, a spontaneous dc current at zero bias. We discuss possible experimental situations providing the necessary hot electrons to observe the predicted ANC and spontaneous dc current generation.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Physics

Pages

728629 bytes

Publication date

1999

Notes

This is a pre-print. It is also available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/9910042.

Language

  • en

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