• Letter

Two-phonon scattering in nonpolar semiconductors: A first-principles study of warm electron transport in Si

Benjamin Hatanpää, Alexander Y. Choi, Peishi S. Cheng, and Austin J. Minnich
Phys. Rev. B 107, L041110 – Published 25 January 2023
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Abstract

The ab initio theory of charge transport in semiconductors typically employs the lowest-order perturbation theory in which electrons interact with one phonon (1ph). This theory is accepted to be adequate to explain the low-field mobility of nonpolar semiconductors but has not been tested extensively beyond the low-field regime. Here, we report first-principles calculations of the electric field dependence of the electron mobility of Si as described by the warm electron coefficient β. Although the 1ph theory overestimates the low-field mobility by only around 20%, it overestimates β by over a factor of two over a range of temperatures and crystallographic axes. We show that the discrepancy in β is reconciled by the inclusion of on-shell iterated two-phonon (2ph) scattering processes, indicating that scattering from higher-order electron-phonon interactions is non-negligible even in nonpolar semiconductors. Further, a 20% underestimate of the low-field mobility with 2ph scattering suggests that nontrivial cancellations may occur in the perturbative expansion of the electron-phonon interaction.

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  • Received 30 August 2022
  • Revised 22 December 2022
  • Accepted 3 January 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.L041110

©2023 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Benjamin Hatanpää, Alexander Y. Choi, Peishi S. Cheng, and Austin J. Minnich*

  • Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

  • *Corresponding author: aminnich@caltech.edu

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Issue

Vol. 107, Iss. 4 — 15 January 2023

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