Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings 468, 457 (1997).
Below is the abstract submitted to the meeting, not the abstract of the published paper:
The electron and hole initiated interband impact ionization rates are determined theoretically for both zincblende and wurtzite phase GaN. The rates are calculated using an ensemble Monte Carlo calculation which includes the full details of the conduction and valence band structures derived from the pseudopotential method. The impact ionization transition rates are determined numerically from the pseudopotential band structures including a wavevector dependent dielectric function. The electron and hole initiated impact ionization rates are calculated as a function of the applied electric field for both crystallographic phases. It is found that the impact ionization rate for both carrier species in the zincblende phase is significantly higher than that in the wurtzite phase. The large difference in the ionization rates between the two phases is attributed to the observation that both carrier species can more readily attain higher energies within the zincblende phase than in the wurtzite phase of GaN. As such, the carrier distributions are much hotter in the zincblende phase than the wurtzite phase of GaN. It is further found that at the highest field strengths examined that the electron ionization rate is roughly one order of magnitude higher than the hole ionization rate in wurtzite phase GaN. In contrast, in zincblende phase GaN, at high fields the carrier ionization rates are comparable.
This paper is part of Gallium Nitride and Related Materials II
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