Improvements in thermionic cooling through engineering of the heterostructure interface using Monte Carlo simulations

A self-consistent Ensemble Monte Carlo (EMC) model was developed to simulate the thermionic effect in heterostructure barrier coolers. The model was validated on an InGaAs-InGaAsP heterostructure device of variable barrier height and width, producing good quantitative agreement with previous literature results. The operation of the cooler was found to be a complex and intricate process depending on the field, conduction band and details of barrier structure. When applied to a GaAs-AlGaAs micro-cooler there was good agreement with the experimental results. Importantly, very small alterations in the barrier structure were found to lead to considerable changes in device performance.