The thermal equilibrium state of semiconductor devices (Q1343547)

What is investigated in this paper is the thermal equilibrium state of a thermodynamic system consisting of two oppositely charged gases confined to a bounded domain \(\Omega\in \mathbb{R}^ m\) \((m= 1,2\) or 3). In \(\Omega\) an electrostatic potential \(V^ e(x)\), \(x\in \Omega\), is applied: \(- \Delta V^ e= C\), where \(C\) is a fixed charge distribution. The state is entirely described by the gases' particle densities \(p= p(x)> 0\) and \(n= n(x)> 0\) minimizing the total energy \(\varepsilon(p, n)\). It is shown that for \(P= \int_ \Omega p\) and \(N= \int_ \Omega n\) the energy \(\varepsilon\) admits a unique minimizer in \(\{(p, n)\in L^ 2(\Omega)\times L^ 2(\Omega): p,n\geq 0\}\) and that \(p, n\in C(\Omega)\cap L^ \infty(\Omega)\) for a very large class of pressure functions. The analysis is applied to the hydrodynamic semiconductor device equations which in general possess more than one thermal equilibrium solution, but only the unique solution of the corresponding variational problem minimizes the total energy \(\varepsilon(p, n)\). It is equivalent to prescribe boundary data for electrostatic potential and particle densities satisfying the usual compatibility relations and to prescribe \(V^ e\) and \(P\), \(N\) for the normal variational problem.