A simple method for estimating peak electron velocities in polar semiconductors

Abstract

The growing interest in microwave field effect transistors points to the need for assessing rapidly the high-frequency potentiality of binary compounds and mixed crystals. Though the two relevant parameters, the breakdown field and the electron mobility, are difficult to calculate from first principles, their product is related only to the effective mass and the LO mode frequency, and this product gives a good measure of the peak electron velocity. Velocities are calculated for a number of materials, and comparisons made with experiment.