Abstract

The so called electron waveguides are short quantum wires through which the electron transport is ballistic. As a result coherence of the electron waves entering the electron waveguide is preserved and a parallel exists with the optical waveguides. However, the analysis and design of electron waveguides is much more complicated since the transport of the carriers is governed by the quantized electronic states. These states can only be determined solving the Schrödinger and Poisson equations self consistently while taking into account the semiconductor statistics. In this paper an efficient finite-element method for the self-consistent analysis of the electron waveguides is reported.

© 1994 Optical Society of America