Carrier relaxation and impact ionization in core-shell III–V nanowires

Nanowires are promising candidates for photovoltaic devices due to their large band gaps and reduced electron-phonon interactions. In the present paper, full band Monte Carlo simulations are performed on square In
_0.53
Ga
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As nanowires along [100] cladded with InP to study the energy relaxation of carriers in these wires. The carriers are optically excited above the band gap of the cladded nanowire and the energy relaxation times are analyzed for different cladding and core thicknesses. The percentage of carriers undergoing an impact ionization event is also presented.