A Mechanism of Occurrence of a Negative Differential Conductivity in Pure p-Ge at Helium Temperatures

The current-voltage characteristic of pure p-Ge in a pre-breakdown region of a shallow-level impurity breakdown has has been estimated using Monte-Carlo simulation in the isotropic-parabolic and crimped dispersion law model approximations. It is shown that under conditions of crimped band dispersion a negative differential conductivity region is observed on the current-voltage characteristics, which is due to the light hole weighting phenomenon. (author)