Inclusion of collision broadening in semiconductor electron-transport simulations

The collision broadening of electronic states due to interactions with phonons is included in a semiclassical transport calculation for semiconductors. The quasiparticle spectral function is used in the transition rates of a Monte Carlo simulation to study the many-body effects of the interacting electron. The full semiconductor band structure is employed through an empirical nonlocal pseudopotential method and the scattering is calculated in the Fock approximation. We find a significant increase in the high-energy tails of the electronic distribution function when the broadening is included. Comparison is made with a similar calculation employing a simpler electronic model.