Comment on "Influence of the doping element on the electron mobility in n silicon" [J. Appl. Phys. 83, 3096 (1998)]

Kaiblinger-Grujin, Kosina, and Selberherr [J. Appl. Phys. 83, 3096 (1998)] have proposed an explanation for the dependence of the electron mobility in n-type silicon on the doping element. We point out that their model presents some questionable aspects: The macroscopic dielectric constant is used even inside the impurity core, screening by valence electrons is double counted, and the distribution of the valence electrons around the impurity is assumed to be isotropic. We modify the model and find that the dependence on the doping element becomes too weak to explain the experimental results. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.