An Approximation of Three-Dimensional Semiconductor Devices by Mixed Finite Element Method and Characteristics-Mixed Finite Element Method

Abstract. The mathematical model for semiconductor devices in three space dimensions are numerically discretized. The system consists of three quasi-linear partial differential equations about three physical variables: the electrostatic potential, the electron concentration and the hole concentration. We use standard mixed finite element method to approximate the elliptic electrostatic potential equation. For the two convection-dominated concentration equations, a characteristics-mixed finite element method is presented. The scheme is locally conservative. The optimal L-norm error estimates are derived by the aid of a post-processing step. Finally, numerical experiments are presented to validate the theoretical analysis.