Hot-Carrier Noise under Degenerate Conditions

Abstract

Degeneracy plays an important role in most electronic devices when regions with high carrier concentration exist and/or low temperatures are considered. After the seminal paper of Bosi and Jacoboni¹, several authors^2–4 have investigated degeneracy effects by using the Monte Carlo (MC) technique. While most of the interest has been addressed to study average quantities, to our knowledge electronic noise has never been considered. Therefore, it is the aim of this paper to analyze some interesting effects associated with the many-body character of degeneracy on noise in the presence of an external electric field of arbitrary strength. As interesting feature, we remind that because of degeneracy no simple relation (e.g. Price’s relationship⁵) exists between noise and diffusion. Thus, modeling of noise under degenerate conditions cannot relate on the knowledge of diffusion, and its determination rests on the calculation of the correspondent current (or voltage) correlation function.