Conservative numerical algorithm for simulating thermoelectrical semiconductor device with unconditional optimal convergence analysis

Abstract

We propose conservative type numerical method to simulate thermoelectrical semiconductor device problem, in which mixed finite element method used for electric potential equation, conservative characteristic finite element method for electron and hole concentration equations, and standard finite element method for heat conduction equation. By temporal-spatial error splitting argument, the optimal error estimates without certain time step restriction are derived, and low order convergence rate of electrostatic potential and electric field intensity will not affect the accuracy of the electron, hole density and temperature. Numerical tests are performed to validate the theoretical results and application performance of the given method.