Quantum-Mechanical Reflection of Electrons at Metal-Semiconductor Barriers: Electron Transport in Semiconductor-Metal-Semiconductor Structures

Abstract

Numerical methods have been used to solve the Schrödinger equation for the quantum‐mechanical reflection coefficient (QMR) of electrons at metal‐semiconductor barriers. The calculations were carried out for a ``MacColl'' type barrier and a ``Thomas‐Fermi'' type barrier. It was found that for both barrier models the QMR≳50% for an electron incident on a barrier with energy less than 0.05 eV with respect to the barrier maximum. The QMR decreases slowly with increasing energy. On the basis of these calculations and calculations of the effects of electron‐phonon scattering in the collector and emitter semiconductors of semiconductor‐metal‐semiconductor structures, the predicted net current transfer ratio in such structure is less than 0.5 exclusive of base‐transport losses.