An implicit coupling scheme for the use of long time steps in stable self-consistent particle simulation of semiconductor devices with high doping levels

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to introduce an efficient iterative implicit coupling scheme for the stochastic particle simulation of semiconductor devices which allows to use long time-steps between successive solutions of the Poisson equation even if the maximum plasma frequency is very high, and which easily can incorporate particle-mesh coupling schemes which guarantee weak self-forces and to first order can also incorporate exact integration of the equations of motion across cell-boundaries of the Poisson-grid. The new method can directly improve the computational efficiency of many particle simulators (standard MC, full-band MC, CA-methods) by an order of magnitude if devices with high free carrier densities are under investigation.