Incoherent processes due to phonons, interface roughness and disorder appear not to be the primary source of valley current of high performance room temperature Resonant Tunneling Diodes (RTDs). Full-band modeling of the devices appears to enable the quantitative simulation of such devices. This presentation motivates why the typically used effective mass approximation is insufficient to model carrier transport in nanometer scaled RTDs. Three physical phenomena are identified as critical to the quantitative modeling of RTDs: 1) band non-parabolicity, 2) band-wrapping of the conduction and valence bands, 3) multiple valleys at Gamma, X, and L in the conduction band. Intuitive sketches demonstrate the importance of these three phenomena and identify their impact on current-voltage characteristics.

Learning Objectives:

1. Gain an intuitive understanding of the effects comprehended in a full band model and neglected in typical effective mass models:
1. Band non-parabilicity
2. Band wrapping of conduction and valence bands
3. Coupling to multiple valleys in the conduction band (Gamma, X, L)
2. Understand these effects in the context of quantitative RTD models.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Gerhard Klimeck (2010), "Nanoelectronic Modeling Lecture 25a: NEMO1D - Full Bandstructure Effects," https://nanohub.org/resources/8594.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. band structure
2. course lecture
3. I-V curves/characteristics
4. modeling
5. nanoelectronics
6. NEMO
7. NEMO1D
8. resonator
9. rtd
10. scattering
11. Simulation
12. temperature