Abstract
The necessity of faster and smaller devices is pushing the electronic industry into developing electron devices with solid-state structures of a few nanometers driven by picosecond signals. Electron dynamics in such scenarios is in general governed by quantum mechanical laws. This chapter is devoted to discuss how Bohmian mechanics can help us to understand and model the behavior of novel electron devices at the nanometer and picosecond scales. The adaptation of Bohmian mechanics to electron transport in open systems leads to a quantum Monte Carlo algorithm, where randomness appears because of the uncertainties in the number of electrons, their energies, and the initial positions of the (Bohmian) trajectories. A general, versatile, and time-dependent three-dimensional (3D) electron transport simulator for nanoelectronic devices, named BITLLES(Bohmian Interacting Transport for nonequiLibrium eLEctronic Structures), is presented, showing its ability for a full prediction (direct current [DC], alternating current [AC], fluctuations, etc.) of the electrical characteristics of any nanoelectronic device. See the website http://europe.uab.es/bitlles. As a typical example of the BITLLES capabilities, we discuss the performance of a resonant tunneling diode. © 2012 Pan Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Applied Bohmian Mechanics: From Nanoscale Systems to Cosmology |
| Place of Publication | (SG) |
| Pages | 375-424 |
| Number of pages | 49 |
| Edition | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 29 Jun 2012 |