Ballistic transport in a nonparabolic band structure

The orientation dependence of ballistic electron transport in GaAs at room temperature is investigated using the Kane band structure model, which is consistent with the pseudopotential model for values of wave vector k<1.5×109 m−1. It is shown that the variation of the effective mass with group velocity plays a very important role in the conservation of energy relation. The field distribution and the I-V characteristic of a two-terminal ballistic transport GaAs device are determined by solving Poisson’s equation for parabolic and nonparabolic band structures. For comparison, the I-V characteristic of InSb is included also.