STATIONARY MODELING OF 2-DIMENSIONAL STATES IN RESONANT-TUNNELING DEVICES

One-side bound states are very important in vertical resonant tunnelin g devices which contain either lightly doped spacers or a small band-g ap pseudomorphic layer adjacent to the barriers. By a proper choice of the boundary conditions, these states are modeled by stationary wave functions which contain the relevant information of the quasi-two-dime nsional system under steady-state conditions. In particular, the wave functions allow the calculation of their contributions to the self-con sistent charge density and the electrical current. In qualitative agre ement with experimental results, it is demonstrated that the main reso nant features of the current-voltage characteristic of these devices a re due to resonant tunneling from an emitter two-dimensional electron gas. Finally, the proposed model is compared with a previous picture o f other authors. (C) 1995 American institute of Physics.