EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURE OF HOT-ELECTRONS - WHY IT APPROACHES THE LATTICE TEMPERATURE

Monte Carlo simulations of carrier transport in the channel of metal-oxide field-effect transistors show a tail in the electron distribution with an effective temperature equal to the lattice temperature. Based on the solution of the Boltzmann transport equation in the relaxation approximation, I give a physical explanation of this feature. The tail at the lattice effective temperature is due to a fundamental energy cutoff: the finite energy the electric field can supply to the carriers on their way from source to drain.