Regenerative switching characteristics of a novel electrical or optical base-controlled AlGaAs/GaAs quantum-well heterojunction bipolar transistor

Author

Tseng, H.C. ; Li, Sheng S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Florida Univ., Gainesville, FL, USA

Volume

12

Issue

10

fYear

1991

Firstpage

568

Lastpage

570

Abstract

A report is presented on the regenerative switching characteristics of a novel AlGaAs/GaAs quantum-well heterojunction bipolar transistor (QWHBT) with an electrically or optically controlled base grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). This double-barrier QWHBT exhibits excellent electrical switching characteristics of 7 V and 0.03 A/cm/sup 2/ at the switching condition and 4.5 V and 3.2 A/cm/sup 2/ at the holding condition. When the device is operating as an optical switch, the optical base-controlled sensitivity is 6*10/sup -3/ V/ mu W. The effects of temperature on the device performance were evaluated at 77 and 300 K. The results show that it may be used as an all-optical switch (flip-flop) for optical parallel image processing.<>

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; gallium arsenide; heterojunction bipolar transistors; integrated optoelectronics; molecular beam epitaxial growth; optical switches; semiconductor quantum wells; 300 K; 4.5 V; 7 V; 77 K; AlGaAs-GaAs; MBE; OEIC; QWHBT; all-optical switch; double-barrier QWHBT; effects of temperature; electrical switching characteristics; electrically controlled base; holding condition; molecular beam epitaxy; optical flip-flop; optical parallel image processing; optical switch; optically controlled base; quantum-well heterojunction bipolar transistor; regenerative switching characteristics; switching condition; Gallium arsenide; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Molecular beam epitaxial growth; Optical control; Optical devices; Optical sensors; Optical switches; Quantum wells; Repeaters; Temperature sensors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/55.119191

Filename

119191