Transmission through abrupt heterojunction potential barriers

Author

Betser, Y. ; Fenigstein, A. ; Salzman, J. ; Ritter, D.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Technion-Israel Inst. of Technol., Haifa, Israel

Volume

30

Issue

9

fYear

1994

fDate

9/1/1994 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1995

Lastpage

2000

Abstract

A new expression is derived for the transmission coefficient of incident electrons scattered by a varying potential with discontinuities. The expression is applicable above, below, and near the potential peak. As an example, electron transmission across the energy barrier in the emitter of an InP/InGaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor is calculated. Excellent agreement with a numerical calculation is obtained, even for electron energies close to the potential peak, where other expressions fail. It is shown how this new approach reduces to other expressions in limiting cases, and its validity in comparison to other approximations is discussed

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; WKB calculations; gallium arsenide; heterojunction bipolar transistors; indium compounds; potential scattering; semiconductor device models; tunnelling; InP-InGaAs; InP/InGaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor; abrupt heterojunction potential barriers; discontinuities; electron energies; energy barrier; expression; incident electrons; numerical calculation; potential peak; transmission coefficient; Bipolar transistors; Electron emission; Energy barrier; Heterojunctions; Indium phosphide; Optical scattering; Particle scattering; Schottky diodes; Tunneling; Turning;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.309857

Filename

309857