DC AND LARGE-SIGNAL TIME-DEPENDENT ELECTRON-TRANSPORT IN HETEROSTRUCTURE DEVICES - AN INVESTIGATION OF THE HETEROSTRUCTURE BARRIER VARACTOR

The dc and large-signal time-dependent electron transport properties o f Heterostructure Barrier Varactors (HBVs) are investigated using a ph ysical model which combines drift-diffusion current transport through the heterostructure bulk with thermionic and thermionic-field emission currents imposed at the abrupt heterointerfaces in a fully self-consi stent manner. A fast and accurate hydrodynamic device simulator for ge neric unipolar InGaAs/InAlAs on InP, InGaAs/InP on InP, and GaAs/InGaA s/AlGaAs on GaAs HBVs has been developed based on this model. The expe rimentally observed current-voltage and capacitance-voltage characteri stics of GaAs/AlGaAs and GaAs/InGaAs/AlGaAs HBVs are compared with the simulated results over a wide range of de bias. Large-signal time dep endent simulations at a pump frequency of 100 GHz confirm the odd-harm onic operation of these devices and indicate that multiple barrier HBV s should provide efficient frequency multiplication, especially in hig h order frequency multipliers, broadband frequency triplers, and quasi -optical tripler arrays.