We study a stationary Schrödinger-Poisson system on a bounded interval of the real axis. The Schrödinger operator is defined on the bounded domain with transparent boundary conditions. This allows us to model a non-zero current through the boundary of the interval. We prove that the system always admits a solution and give explicit a priori estimates for the solutions.
We regard drift-diffusion equations for semiconductor devices in Lebesgue spaces. To that end we reformulate the (generalized) van Roosbroeck system as an evolution equation for the potentials to the driving forces of the currents of electrons and holes. This evolution equation falls into a class of quasi-linear parabolic systems which allow unique, local in time solution in certain Lebesgue spaces. In particular, it turns out that the divergence of the electron and hole current is an integrable function. Hence, Gauss' theorem applies, and gives the foundation for space discretization of the equations by means of finite volume schemes. Moreover, the strong differentiability of the electron and hole density in time is constitutive for the implicit time discretization scheme. Finite volume discretization of space, and implicit time discretization are accepted custom in engineering and scientific computing. ---This investigation puts special emphasis on non-smooth spatial domains, mixed boundary conditions, and heterogeneous material compositions, as required in electronic device simulation.
We investigate optimal elliptic
regularity (within the scale of Sobolev spaces) of anisotropic
div--grad operators in three dimensions at a multi-material vertex on
the Neumann boundary part of a polyhedral spatial domain. The
gradient of a solution to the corresponding elliptic PDE (in a
neighbourhood of the vertex) is integrable to an index greater than
three.
Let H be a semi–bounded self–adjoint operator in a separable Hilbert space.
For a certain class of positive, continuous, decreasing, and convex functions
F we show the convexity of trace functionals tr(F (H + U − ε(U ))) − ε(U ),
where U is a bounded self–adjoint operator on H and ε(U ) is a normalizing
real function—the Fermi level—which may be identical zero. If additionally
F is continuously differentiable, then the corresponding trace functional is
Fréchet differentiable and there is an expression of its gradient in terms off
the derivative of F . The proof of the differentiability of the trace functional
is based upon Birman and Solomyak’s theory of double Stieltjes operator
integrals. If, in particular, H is a Schrödinger–type operator and U a real-valued function, then the gradient of the trace functional is the quantum
mechanical expression of the particle density with respect to an equilibrium
distribution function f = −F . Thus, the monotonicity of the particle density
in its dependence on the potential U of Schrödinger’s operator—which has
been understood since the late 1980s—follows as a special case.
We study in detail Schroedinger-type operators on a bounded interval of the real axis with dissipative boundary conditions. The characteristic function of such operators is computed, its minimal self-adjoint dilation is constructed and the generalized eigenfunction expansion for the dilation is developed. The problem is motivated by semiconductor physics.
We describe an embedding of a quantum mechanically described structure into a macroscopic flow. The open quantum system is partly driven by an adjacent macroscopic flow acting on the boundary of the bounded spatial domain designated to quantum mechanics. This leads to an essentially non-selfadjoint Schroedinger-type operator, the spectral properties of which will be investigated.
Using a classical theorem of Sobolevskii on equations of parabolic type in a Banach space and recently obtained results on elliptic operators with discontinuous coefficients including mixed boundary conditions we prove that quasilinear parabolic systems in diagonal form admit a local, classical solution in the space of p-integrable functions, for some p greater than 1, over a bounded two dimensional space domain. As applications we have in mind systems of reaction diffusion equations, e.g. van Roosbroeck's system. The treatment of such equations in a space of integrable functions enables us to define the normal component of the flow across any part of the Dirichlet boundary by Gauss' theorem.
Let $\Upsilon$ be a three-dimensional Lipschitz polyhedron, and assume that the matrix function $\mu$ is piecewise constant on a polyhedral partition of $\Upsilon$. Based on regularity results for solutions to two-dimensional anisotropic transmission problems near corner points we obtain conditions on $\mu$ and the intersection angles between interfaces and $\partial \Upsilon$ ensuring that the operator $-\nabla \cdot \mu \nabla$ maps the Sobolev space $W^1,q_0(\Upsilon)$ isomorphically onto $W^-1,q(\Upsilon)$ for some $q > 3$.
In semiconductor devices one basically distinguishes three spatial scales: The atomistic scale of the bulk semiconductor materials (sub-Angstroem), the scale of the interaction zone at the interface between two semiconductor materials together with the scale of the resulting size quantization (nanometer) and the scale of the device itself (micrometer). The paper focuses on the two scale transitions inherent in the hierarchy of scales in the device. We start with the description of the band structure of the bulk material by kp Hamiltonians on the atomistic scale. We describe how the envelope function approximation allows to construct kp Schroedinger operators describing the electronic states at the nanoscale which are closely related to the kp Hamiltonians. Special emphasis is placed on the possible existence of spurious modes in the kp Schroedinger model on the nanoscale which are inherited from anomalous band bending on the atomistic scale. We review results of the mathematical analysis of these multi-band kp Schroedinger operators. Besides of the confirmation of the main facts about the band structure usually taken for granted, key results are conditions on the coefficients of the kp Schroedinger operator for the nanostructure, which exclude spurious modes and an estimate of the size of the band gap. Using these results, we give an overview of properties of the electronic band structure of strained quantum wells. Further, the assumption of flat-band conditions across the nanostructure allows for upscaling of quantum calculations to state equations for semi-classical models. We demonstrate this approach for parameters such as the quantum corrected band-edges, the effective density of states, the optical response, and the optical peak gain. Further, we apply the kp Schroedinger theory to low gap quantum wells, a case where a proper rescaling of the optical matrix element is necessary to avoid spurious modes. Finally, we discuss the application of the kp Schroedinger models to biased quantum wells, the operation mode of electro-optic modulators.
For rather general thermodynamic equilibrium distribution functions the density of a statistical ensemble of quantum mechanical particles depends analytically on the potential in the Schrödinger operator describing the quantum system. A key to the proof is that the resolvent to a power less than one of an elliptic operator with non-smooth coefficients, and mixed Dirichlet/Neumann boundary conditions on a bounded up to three-dimensional Lipschitz domain factorizes over the space of essentially bounded functions.