No Arabic abstract
The Boltzmann transport equation is one of the most relevant framework to study the heat transport at the nanoscale, beyond the diffusive regime and up to the micrometer-scale. In the general case of three-dimensional devices, the particle Monte Carlo approach of phonon transport is particularly powerful and convenient, and requires reasonable computational resources. In this work, we propose an original and versatile particle Monte Carlo approach parametrized by using ab-initio data. Both the phonon dispersion and the phonon-phonon scattering rates have been computed by DFT calculation in the entire 3D Brillouin zone. To treat the phonon transport at rough interfaces, a combination of specular and diffuse reflections has been implemented in phase space. Thermal transport has been investigated in nanowires and thin films made of cubic and hexagonal Silicon, including edge roughness, in terms of effective thermal conductivity, phonon band contributions and heat flux orientation. It is shown that the effective thermal conductivity in quasi-ballistic regime obtained from our Monte Carlo simulation cannot be accurately fitted by simple semi-analytical Matthiessen-like models and that spectral approaches are mandatory to get good results. Our Full Band approach shows that some phonon branches exhibiting a negative group velocity in some parts of the Brillouin zone may contribute negatively to the total thermal flux. Besides, the thermal flux clearly appears to be oriented along directions of high density of states. The resulting anisotropy of the heat flux is discussed together with the influence of rough interfaces.
In this work, we adopt first-principle calculations based on density functional theory and Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the adsorption and diffusion of lithium in bilayer graphene (BLG) as anodes in lithium-ion batteries. Based on energy barriers directly obtained from first-principle calculations for single-Li and two-Li intercalated BLG, a new equation was deduced for predicting energy barriers considering Lis interactions for multi-Li intercalated BLG. Our calculated results indicate that Li energetically prefers to intercalate within rather than adsorb outside the bilayer graphene. Additionally, lithium exists in cationic state in the bilayer graphene. More excitingly, ultrafast Li diffusion coefficient, within AB-stacked BLG near room temperature was obtained, which reproduces the ultrafast Li diffusion coefficient measured in recent experiment. However, ultrafast Li diffusion was not found within AA-stacked BLG near room temperature. The analyses of potential distribution indicate that the stacking structure of BLG greatly affects its height of potential well within BLG, which directly leads to the large difference in Li diffusion. Furthermore, it is found that both the interaction among Li ions and the stacking, structure cause Li diffusion within AB-stacked BLG to exhibit directional preference. Finally, the temperature dependence of Li diffusion is described by the Arrhenius law. These findings suggest that the stacking structure of BLG has an important influence on Li diffusion within BLG, and changing the stacking structure of BLG is one possible way to greatly improve Li diffusion rate within BLG. At last, it is suggested that AB-stacked BLG can be an excellent candidate for anode material in Lithium-ion batteries.
In this paper we investigate warm electron injection in a double gate SONOS memory by means of 2D full-band Monte Carlo simulations of the Boltzmann Transport Equation (BTE). Electrons are accelerated in the channel by a drain-to-source voltage VDS smaller than 3 V, so that programming occurs via electrons tunneling through a potential barrier whose height has been effectively reduced by the accumulated kinetic energy. Particle energy distribution at the semiconductor/oxide interface is studied for different bias conditions and different positions along the channel. The gate current is calculated with a continuum-based post-processing method as a function of the particle distribution obtained from Monte Carlo. Simulation results show that the gate current increases by several orders of magnitude with increasing drain bias and warm electron injection can be an interesting option for programming when short channel effects prohibit the application of larger drain bias.
Avalanche photodiodes fabricated from AlInAsSb grown as a digital alloy exhibit low excess noise. In this paper, we investigate the band structure-related mechanisms that influence impact ionization. Band-structures calculated using an empirical tight-binding method and Monte Carlo simulations reveal that the mini-gaps in the conduction band do not inhibit electron impact ionization. Good agreement between the full band Monte Carlo simulations and measured noise characteristics is demonstrated.
Electronic structure of layered LiNiO2 has been controversial despite numerous theoretical and experimental reports regarding its nature. We investigate the charge densities, lithium intercalation potentials and Li diffusion barrier energies of LixNiO2 (0.0 < x < 1.0) system using a truly ab-initio method, diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (DMC). We compare the charge densities from DMC and density functional theory (DFT) and show that local and semi-local DFT functionals yield spin polarization densities with incorrect sign on the oxygen atoms. SCAN functional and Hubbard-U correction improves the polarization density around Ni and O atoms, resulting in smaller deviations from the DMC densities. DMC accurately captures the p-d hybridization between the Ni-O atoms, yielding accurate lithium intercalation voltages, polarization densities and reaction barriers.
We present an emph{ab-initio} study of the graphene quasi-particle band structure as function of the doping in G_0 W_0 approximation. We show that the LDA Fermi velocity is substantially renormalized and this renormalization rapidly decreases as function of the doping. We found, in agreement with previous papers, that close to the Dirac point the linear dispersion of the bands is broken but this behaviour disappears with a small doping. We discuss our results in the light of recent experiments on graphene and intercalate graphite.