Electron-Electron Interaction in Warm Electrons

Effects of the electron-electron interaction on the distribution function of warm electrons in semiconductors are investigated by the Born approximation with a screened Coulomb potential. The theory shows that the effect of the e - e interaction is remarkable, unless the density of the electrons is quite small. We compare the theoretical results to Gunn's experiment. He observed the behaviors of the warm electrons n -type germanium doped with Sb at 77°K by changing the impurity concentration from 6.6×10 18 to 29×10 16 cm -3 . We find that the theory does not give a good agreement with the experiment, when we do not consider the e - e interaction. The theory with the e - e interaction, however, agrees quite well with the experiment all through the impurity concentrations.