A higher order electron wave propagation method

A finite-difference propagation scheme for simulating electron currents through arbitrary quantum structures is presented in this paper. It is shown that due to the strong interaction of external fields and electrons, the trajectories predicted using higher order propagation operators are a significant improvement over that of lower order schemes, especially in cases where the longitudinal electron momentum is not accurately known. A novel boundary condition based on the popular transparent boundary condition is used for minimizing unphysical reflections off the computation boundaries even in the presence of strong lateral electric fields. The application of this scheme is illustrated through a few examples