Investigation of the influence of the well and the barrier thicknesses in GaSb/AlSb/GaSb/AlSb/InAs double-barrier interband tunneling structures

Author

Chen, J.F. ; Yang, Long ; Cho, Alfred Y.

Author_Institution

AT&T Bell Labs., Murray Hill, NJ, USA

Volume

11

Issue

11

fYear

1990

Firstpage

532

Lastpage

534

Abstract

The tunneling currents of GaSb/AlSb/GaSb/AlSb/InAs double-barrier interband tunneling (DBIT) structures were studied experimentally by varying the thickness of the well and the barrier layers systematically. The optimal thicknesses for the GaSb well and the AlSb barriers were found to be 6.5 and 1.0 nm, respectively, to obtain a high peak current density (19 kA/cm/sup 2/), with a large peak-to-valley ratio of 4. The high peak current in the DBIT structure shows the strong effect of the resonant coherence of the wave function across the double barrier. For the case of a small GaSb well width (3 nm), a drastic reduction of the peak current was observed, an effect suggesting that the electron-wave function in the InAs couples primarily to the quantized light hole state in the GaSb well.<>

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; gallium compounds; indium compounds; semiconductor junctions; semiconductor quantum wells; tunnel diodes; tunnelling; 1.0 nm; 6.5 nm; AlSb barriers; DBIT; GaSb well; GaSb-AlSb-GaSb-AlSb-InAs; barrier thickness influence; double-barrier interband tunneling structures; electron-wave function; optimal thicknesses; peak current; peak current density; peak-to-valley ratio; quantized light hole state; resonant coherence of wave function; tunneling currents; well thickness influence; Coherence; Current density; Electrodes; Electrons; Molecular beam epitaxial growth; Resonance; Semiconductor diodes; Semiconductor materials; Tunneling; Wave functions;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/55.63023

Filename

63023