On a quasilinear degenerate system arising in semiconductors theory. I: Existence and uniqueness of solutions (Q5954774)

Drift-diffusion equations are the most widely used model to describe the electronic behaviour of semiconductors materials under the influence of an electric field. Mathematically, the problem is formulated in terms of a system of parabolic equations for the electrons and hole densities, \(u\) and \(v\), and the Poisson equation for the electric potential. This model is derived from Boltzmann's equation when the applied voltage is small (low injection regime) and it has been extensively investigated. In this article, authors present a theorem of existence of weak solution for high injection regime, i.e., when diffusion terms are no longer linear and the parabolic equations become of degenerate type. Uniqueness is also studied through three theorems which share a duality technique in their proofs. The first result covers the situations in which diffusion dominates both transport and reaction. The second result needs the pressure function be non-decreasing and a entropy-type condition for electric field. The third result uses the assumption that \(\nabla u,\;\nabla v\in L^1(Q_T)\). They show that this regularity is achieved for data smooth enough and in space dimension one.