Bandgap engineered graphene and hexagonal boron nitride for resonant tunnelling diode

Abstract

In this article a double-barrier resonant tunnelling diode (DBRTD) has been modelled by taking advantage of single-layer hexagonal lattice of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). The DBRTD performance and operation are explored by means of a self-consistent solution inside the non-equilibrium Green’s function formalism on an effective mass-Hamiltonian. Both p- and n-type DBRTDs exhibit a negative differential resistance effect, which entails the resonant tunnelling through the hole and electron bound states in the graphene quantum well, respectively. The peak-to-valley ratio of approximately 8 (3) for p-type (n-type) DBRTD with quantum well of 5.1 nm (4.3 nm) at a barrier width of 1.3 nm was achieved for zero bandgap graphene at room temperature.