Separation of angular and energy relaxations of nonequilibrium electrons in a solid

Abstract

We demonstrate that the collision integral of the kinetic equation for the interaction of hot electrons with phonons can be split into substantially different parts that correspond to elastic and inelastic collisions. In particular, this applies to electrons with energies of about 1 eV that propagate in semiconductors. The difference in the characteristic energy and momentum relaxation times makes it possible to separate the angular and energy relaxation processes. If the differential cross section of elastic scattering depends, not on the scattering angle, but on the directions of incident and scattered electrons (which is observed, e.g., for the interaction of an electron with piezoelectric lattice vibrations in A^IIIB^V compounds), the Laplacian in the equation that describes the spatial and energy distributions of electrons can be replaced by an elliptical operator; i.e., the electron diffusion turns out to be anisotropic.