Nonequilibrium Green's function approach to high-temperature quantum transport in nanostructure devices

A quantum kinetic equation for the Wigner distribution function including collisional broadening effects is formulated based upon nonequilibrium Green's function technique, and applied to the high-temperature quantum transport in nanostructure devices. The collisional effects due to longitudinal optical phonon scattering are introduced to the transport equation through the electron spectral function. After studying the influence of quantum size confinement on the spectral functions in nanostructures, the nonlinear current-voltage characteristics of quantum wires and the phonon bottleneck phenomena in quantum dot lasers at high temperature are analyzed. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.