Jma. Gilman et Ag. Oneill, MODELING OF RESONANT INTERBAND TUNNELING STRUCTURES AS BACK-BACK INTER-DIMENSIONAL ESAKI DIODES, Superlattices and microstructures, 14(2-3), 1993, pp. 129-136
In recent years, improvements in semiconductor growth technologies hav
e permitted the construction of devices in which carriers tunnel throu
gh confined sub-band states via n-p-n junctions or staggered-band-edge
(Type II) heterostructures, this process often being denoted ''Resona
nt Interband Tunnelling'' (RIT), The interband tunnelling current in 3
D-2D-3D structures may also be modelled within a modified form of the
theoretical framework of the Esaki diode, and the similarities to, and
differences from, both single-band Resonant Tunnelling Diode (RTD) an
d RIT devices and effects are discussed. Consideration is also taken o
f the electrical properties of circuits based around such devices, and
good correlation is found between our approach and the experimental r
esults demonstrated by a number of authors in recent years. Estimates
of other factors, such as recombination lifetime of the quantum well r
esonant state (which appears to be much smaller than the carrier trans
it time) appear to support an Esaki, rather than a resonant, interpret
ation of the tunnelling process in such devices