EFFECT OF THE NONEQUILIBRIUM DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION ON THE ENERGY LOSS RATE OF HOT ELECTRONS IN A SEMICONDUCTOR

The closed time path Green’s function method is used to derive the nonequilibrium distribution functions of acoustic phonons and excitations of hot electrons, renormalized by the electron-phonon interaction in the random phase approximation, and to calculate the power dissipation of hot electrons. It is shown that the energy loss channel of hot electrons would vanish unless a relaxation rate corresponding to the decay of one acoustic phonon into two or more bare acoustic phonons via the anharmonic interaction is explicitly included in the phonon propagator. The effect due to the anharmonic interaction on the energy loss rate of hot electrons has also been studied.