MONTE-CARLO SIMULATIONS OF CARRIER TRANSPORT AND RELAXATION IN SUPERLATTICES

Monte Carlo simulations of carrier transport through an undoped superl attice into an extended well are described. The results illustrate cle arly the important role played by LO phonons in relaxing the energy an d the desirability of designing structures which minimize the need for acoustic phonon participation. Attention is drawn to the fact that al though, for the standard structures investigated, the LO phonon relaxa tion rate is relatively independent of the miniband and/or the quantum well eigenstates, the precise shape of the form-factor for an allowed LO transition could play an important role in deciding the relative n umber of 'slow' carriers in an actual system.