Eur. Phys. J. B 4, 113-119 (1998)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050357

Electron-phonon scattering in an asymmetric double barrier resonant tunneling structure

School of Mathematics, Physics, Computing and Electronics, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia

Corresponding authors: ^a shijj@jen.mpce.mq.edu.au - ^b barry.sanders@mq.edu.au - ^c shp@aphy02.iphy.ac.cn

Received: 23 December 1997
Revised: 24 March 1998
Accepted: 9 March 1998
Published online: 15 July 1998

Abstract

We calculate the electron-phonon scattering rate for an asymmetric double barrier resonant tunneling structure based on dielectric continuum theory, including all phonon modes, and show that interface phonons contribute much more to the scattering rate than do bulk-like LO phonons for incident energies which are approximately within an order of magnitude of the Fermi energy. The maximum scattering rate occurs for incident electron energies near the quantum well resonance. Subband nonparabolicity has a significant influence on electron-phonon scattering in these structures. We show that the relaxation time is comparable to the dwell time of electrons in the quantum well for a typical resonant tunneling structure.