Should Boltzmann equation for electron transport replace phi-rho-z

[Ben Buse]

Just looking at this paper from 2018 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/304/1/012004/pdf and wondering if  Boltzmann equation for electron transport should replace phi-rho-z given that it gives phi-rho-z curves more closely matching monte carlo than XPP or XPHI?

[Nicholas Ritchie]

I'm a big fan of the Boltzmann equation approach and would love to see it made available.  Experience will tell whether it is really is more accurate than available phi(rho-z) models.  Better yet, the Boltzmann equation approach can be used on non-ideal sample geometries.  Monte Carlos can too but the Boltzmann models are analytical rather than stochastic so convergence of the inverse problem (aka "iteration") is much simpler to implement.  The Boltzmann equation approach is very expensive to calculate in naive fashion so it too requires approximations to be made practical.  It is essentially a six-dimensional integral (if I remember correctly).  I'm not sure what happened to the Aachen group lead by Torrihlon. I think they had a couple of students on this project and then lost interest as I haven't heard from them recently.