Particle modeling of semiconductor quantum devices

With the scaling down of semiconductor device deeply into the sub-0.1 mum region, it is increasingly important to take quantum mechanical effects of carrier transport into account in device simulation. However, it is difficult to simulate practical devices where clear semi-classical and quantum features coexist, as is the case for nanoscale devices at normal temperatures. In this paper, we present a particle description of quantum phenomena based upon a quantum force derived from the Wigner's transport formalism. The quantum force can be incorporated into the driving force term of the Boltzmann transport equation, which enables us to utilize the well-developed particle Monte Carlo computational techniques. We demonstrate that the quantum transport effects such as quantum tunneling and energy quantization are incorporated in the standard Monte Carlo technique.