Monte Carlo Modeling of Phonon-assisted Carrier Transport in Cubic and Hexagonal Gallium Nitride

Monte Carlo method is employed for the calculations of electron and hole transport characteristics of cubic and hexagonal GaN at T = 300 K in the fields of E ≤ 1000 kV/cm⁻¹. It is shown that electron drift velocity and mobility is heavily reduced in hexagonal crystals due to additional phonon modes (~ 26 meV) and by fast electron scattering between the lowest Γ₁ valley and the minimally (~ 400 meV) up-shifted Γ₃ valley. Intervalley scattering is mediated most efficiently by the low-energy (~ 2 meV) acoustic phonons. The randomizing scattering is even more pronounced in p-type crystals where the sub-bands of light and heavy holes merge at the Γ-point of Brillouin zone. Cubic phase crystals are concluded to be advantageous for ultrafast electronic and photonics device performance because electron drift mobility is higher by an order of magnitude, and the hole mobility is several times higher than those in hexagonal phase.