Weighted Monte Carlo for electron transport in semiconductors

Abstract

A new powerful method, the weighted Monte Carlo method, for the solution of electron transport problems in semiconductors is presented. The method is formally derived from an iterative expansion of the integral form of the Boltzmann equation and results in a simulation of electron dynamics where arbitrary probabilities for the various events which generate electron trajectories are used. It is much more flexible than the standard algorithm that can be derived by it as a very special case. The method is applied here to study the tail of the distribution function in a simple silicon model.