Monte Carlo simulation for electron transport in MESFETs including realistic band structure of GaAs

A full band Monte Carlo (FBMC) simulator was developed for electron transport in GaAs MESFETs. As a result of increased scattering rate due to the complicated band structure, the average velocity in the high field region was lower than the analytical band Monte Carlo (ABMC) result. Also, the simulated energy peak was higher than the ABMC result, due to electrons populating the upper bands. Not only due to a limited number of the first conduction band states capable of ionization, but also due to a small mass of the second conduction band, more than 95% of ionization events were shown to occur in the upper bands. The simulated ionization rate lies within the range of experimental results. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the full band two-dimensional (2-D) self-consistent GaAs MESFET simulation.