Ballistic Peaks in the Distribution Function From Intervalley Transfer in a Submicron Structure.

Using Monte-Carlo simulation, we show the ballistic electrons coupled with intervalley scattering produces peaks in the distribution function of electrons in submicron structures. We calculate the distribution functions f(v,x) and f(epsilon, x) for a submicron N sup (+) -N sup (-) -N sup (+) GaAs structure under a large applied bias using realistic scattering rates. Ballistic electrons cause both the dominant peak in f(v,x) throughout the N sup (-) region and additional peaks in f(epsilon,x) following transfer from the L valley to the Gamma valley. For low densities and low temperatures (T=77), both ballistic peaks in the distribution function split into several sharp peaks separated in energy by the LO-phonon energy.