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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2011
The energy distribution of electrons that were transported through a thin intrinsic AlN film was directly measured as a function of the applied field. The measurements were realized by extracting the electrons into vacuum through a semitransparent Au contact and measuring their energy using an electron spectrometer. At moderate applied fields (350 kV/cm), the energy distribution followed a Maxwellian model corresponding to an electron temperature of 2700 K and a drift component below the spectrometer resolution. At higher fields, intervalley scattering was evidenced by the presence of a second peak at 0.7 eV. This coincides well with the energy position of the L-M valley in AlN. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first measurements that offer direct evidence of intervalley scattering in any solid system.