Introducing energy broadening in semiclassical Monte Carlo simulations

Combining an insight on the quantum transport given by the Wigner function formalism and the classical perturbation theory, an algorithm has been developed that allows the introduction of collisional broadening in semiclassical electron transport Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. In the proposed algorithm, electron energy and momentum are treated as independent variables; the laws of energy and momentum conservation are fulfilled at each scattering event, but the relationship between energy and momentum is not given by the traditional expression, since Bloch states are not eigenstates of the total Hamiltonian. The results obtained for a simple model semiconductor demonstrate that the non-physical instabilities observed in previous attempts to introduce collisional broadening in semiclassical MC simulations have been removed. The algorithm is suitable for application in MC simulations of realistic device models.