Inelastic scattering and shot noise in diffusive mesoscopic conductors

TL;DR

This paper develops a formalism for calculating finite-frequency shot noise in diffusive conductors, introducing a new phenomenological model for electron distribution with electron-electron scattering and revealing conditions for large shot noise in thin samples.

Contribution

It presents a drift-diffusion-Langevin formalism and introduces a simple phenomenological expression for electron distribution considering electron-electron interactions.

Findings

A new phenomenological expression for electron distribution function.

Large low-frequency shot noise possible in thin samples beyond electron-phonon relaxation length.

Formalism accurately predicts shot noise behavior in diffusive conductors.

Abstract

A short summary of the drift-diffusion-Langevin formalism for calculating finite-frequency shot noise in diffusive conductors is presented. Two new results are included in this presentation. First, we arrive at a simple (but accurate) phenomenological expression for the semiclassical distribution function of electrons in the presence of electron-electron scattering. Second, it is shown that in thin samples, low-frequency shot noise may be large even if the sample length is much larger than the electron-phonon relaxation length.