Abstract
We present a theoretical study of hot-carrier induced light emission in III-V semiconductor devices. Carrier heating under the intense electric fields present under high bias conditions are studied via a selfconsistent Monte Carlo simulation. The carrier distribution functions obtained from the simulation are then incorporated into a pseudo-potential algorithm that describes the direct optical transitions and calculates the corresponding spectra. We show that the light emission due to hot carriers is dominated by direct radiative interband transitions within the conduction and valence bands. Good agreement between theory and experiment is obtained for GaAs MESFET and GaAs/AlGaAs HBTs.