Breakdown of the semiclassical description of hot-electron dynamics in SiO2

Soft-x-ray photoemission measurements of the bulk Si 2p core level in Si/SiO2 overlayer structures show that hot-electron transport in SiO2 is essentially independent of temperature between 300 and 980 K. These results reveal a basic failure of the semiclassical Monte Carlo formalism to correctly model the strong electron-phonon interaction in SiO2 at electron energies >6 eV. The experimental data are shown to be consistent with the trends seen in quantum Monte Carlo transport calculations. © 1992 The American Physical Society.