Transient analysis of a triangular-barrier bulk unipolar diode

The transient analysis of a triangular-barrier bulk unipolar diode (TB) is based on the conduction currents associated with both the majority and minority carriers together with a displacement current associated with the space change regions. During the turn-on and turn-off transients the conduction current, which is determined by thermionic emission-diffusion theory, is shown to have negligible effect compared with the displacement current. The transients and steadystate currents of a typical GaAs TB are compared to those from a device simulator which includes thermionic emission over the barrier, and are shown to be in excellent agreement. 10% time constants are determined by an analytic expression for both turn-on and turn-off and are shown to be equivalent and dependent on the applied DC bias and independent of the position of the p+plane in the undoped region.