The influence of interelectronic collisions on conduction and breakdown in polar crystals

Abstract

The variation of the electron mobility with an increasing applied field and also the collective dielectric breakdown field, are calculated assuming that interelectronic collisions are sufficiently frequent to determine the energy and momentum distributions of the electron gas. At high temperatures a small increase (by a factor less than 2) and at low temperatures a large decrease (by a factor greater than 10) in the mobility should be observed as the field approaches the breakdown value. It is also shown that the mobility variation at high temperatures will be substantially the same if interelectronic collisions are not predominant, but at low temperatures there will be no variation at all. The application of these results to semi-conductors where the electron scattering mechanism is uncertain is discussed with special reference to indium antimonide.