SIC SI HETEROSTRUCTURE NEGATIVE-DIFFERENTIAL-RESISTANCE DIODE FOR HIGH-TEMPERATURE APPLICATIONS/

In this letter, we report the observation of N-shaped negative-differe ntial-resistance (NDR) characteristics in a SiC/Si heterostructure dio de. The typical NDR in this device has a peak-to-valley current ratio (PVCR) of 44 and a high peak current of 4.8 mA at room temperature. A possible model based on the multi-tunneling process was proposed to ex plain the origin of the NRD in this device. The most attractive featur e of this device is its high-temperature NDR characteristics. An obvio us NDR with a PVCR of as high as 9 is obtained at 200 degrees C, indic ating that this SiC/Si heterostructure NDR diode is promising for high -temperature electronic applications. (C) 1998 American Institute of P hysics.