Analysis of Phase-Breaking Effects in Triple-Barrier Resonant-Tunneling Diodes

Abstract

We analyze phase-breaking effects in triple-barrier resonant-tunneling diodes (TBRTDs) for estimations of hot-electron phase coherence. The method employed is the nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism with a simple phase-breaking model. The NEGF formalism is found to improve a previously reported analysis for TBRTDs with respect to magnitudes of current densities. By comparing results of the present analysis with the experimental data, it is shown that the phase relaxation time is longer than 0.2 ps in GaInAs/InP TBRTD at the resonance level of 50 meV above the first well bottom and 100 meV above the second well bottom and at 4.2 K.