A new switching characteristics of highly doped multi-quantum well

A new type of hysteretic current-voltage characteristics, which switched fr om a low conductance off-state into a high conductance on-state at a thresh old voltage and the high conductance state was sustained even when the bias voltage reduced below the threshold voltage, was experimentally observed f or the highly doped multi-quantum well structure. The characteristics were attributed to confinement of electrons and impact ionization of the confine d electrons out of the quantum wells. The test devices employing 10 periods of quantum wells were fabricated by using AlGaAs/GaAs semiconductor hetero structure and I-V characteristics were examined.