HP Labs Technical Reports

Effect of Electron Launcher Structures on AlAs/GaAs Double Barrier Resonant Tunneling Diodes

Yang, L.; Mars, D. E.; Tan, Michael R.

HPL-92-73

Keyword(s):

Abstract: We have studied experimentally the effect of several electron launcher structures on AlAs/GaAs double barrier resonant diodes (RTD). The experimental results show that a linearly graded AlGaAs launcher structure improves the tunneling current by presumably removing the hump in the conduction band caused by the space charges near the n-i junction in the spacer layer. Peak current densities as high as 170kA/cm(squared) with a peak-to-valley current ration of 3.2 were obtained from these graded launcher RTD's. Compared with the conventional RTD, the graded launcher gives a 50% improvement in the peak current density while reducing the peak-current voltage by 40% and maintaining a similar peak-to-valley current ratio.

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