Resonant interband tunnel diode

Resonant interband tunnel diodes (RITDs) combine the structures and behaviors ofboth "intraband" resonant tunnel diodes (RTDs) and conventional "interband" tunnel diodes,in which electronic transitions occur between the energy levels in the quantumwells in the conduction band and that in the valence band ref|Ng02 ref|Sweeny89.Like resonant tunnel diodes, resonant interband tunnel diodes can be realizedin both the III-V and Si/SiGe materials systems.

III-V Resonant Interband Tunnel Diodes

In the III-V materials system,InAlAs/InGaAs RITDs with peak-to-valley current ratios (PCVRs) higher than70 ref|Day90 and as high as 144 ref|Tsai94at room temperature and Sb-based RITDs with room temperature PVCRas high as 20 ref|Soderstrom89 have been obtained.But the main drawback of III-V RITDs is the use of III-V materialswhose processing is incompatible with Si processing and is expensive.

Si/SiGe Resonant Interband Tunnel Diodes

In Si/SiGe materials system,Si/SiGe resonant interband tunnel diodes have also been developedwhich have the potential of being integrated into the mainstreamSi integrated circuits technology ref|Rommel98.PVCRs of up to 4.0 have been obtained ref|Park2006.The same structure was duplicated by another research group usinga different MBE system, and PVCRs of up to 6.0have been obtainedref|Duschl2000.In terms of peak current density, peak current densities ranging from as low as 20 mA/cm² and as high as 218 kA/cm²,spanning seven orders of magnitude, have been obtainedref|Chung06.See separate entry
Si/SiGe resonant interband tunnel diodesfor more details.

References

# Kwok K. Ng, Complete Guide to Semiconductor Devices, Second Edition, Wiley-Interscience, 2002.
# M. Sweeny and J.M. Xu, Resonant interband tunnel diodes, Appl. Phys. Lett. 54, 546 (1989).
# D.J. Day, Y. Chung, C. Webb, J.N. Eckstein, J.M. Xu, and M. Sweeny, Double quantum well resonant tunnel diodes, Appl. Phys. Lett. 57, 1260 (1990).
# H.H. Tsai, Y.K. Su, H.H. Lin, R.L. Wang, and T.L. Lee, P-N double quantum well resonant interband tunneling diode with peak-to-valley current ratio of 144 at room temperature, IEEE Electron Device Letters 15, 357 (1994).
# J. R. Soderstrom, D. H. Chow, and T. C. McGill, New negative differential resistance device based on resonant interband tunneling, Applied Physics Letters 55, 1094 (1989).
# S.L. Rommel, T.E. Dillon, M.W. Dashiell, H. Feng, J. Kolodzey, P.R. Berger, P.E. Thompson, K.D. Hobart, R. Lake, A.C. Seabaugh, G. Klimeck, and D.K. Blanks, Room Temperature Operation of Epitaxially Grown Si/Si_0.5Ge_0.5/Si Resonant Interband Tunneling Diodes, Applied Physics Letters 73, 2191 (1998).
# S.-Y. Park, S.-Y. Chung, P.R. Berger, R. Yu, and P.E. Thompson, Low sidewall damage plasma etching using ICP-RIE with HBr chemistry of Si/SiGe resonant interband tunnel diodes, IEE Electronics Letters 42, 719 (2006).
# R. Duschl and K. Eberl, Physics and applications of Si/SiGe/Si resonant interband tunneling diodes, Thin Solid Films 380, 151 (2000).
# N. Jin, S.Y. Chung, R. Yu, R.M. Heyns, P.R. Berger, and P.E. Thompson, The effect of spacer thicknesses on Si-based resonant interband tunneling diode performance and their application to low-power tunneling diode SRAM circuits, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices 53, 2243 (2006).
# S.Y. Chung, R. Yu, N. Jin, S.Y. Park, P.R. Berger, and P.E. Thompson, Si/SiGe Resonant Interband Tunnel Diode with f_r0 20.2 GHz and Peak Current Density 218 kA/cm² for K-band Mixed-Signal Applications, IEEE Electron Device Letters 27, 364 (2006).

See also

*Resonant tunnel diode
*Si/SiGe resonant interband tunnel diode