Carrier transport in broken-gap heterostructures tuned by a magnetic field

Abstract

We have performed an eight-band $\mathbf{k}∙\mathbf{p}$ model calculation on the current-voltage $(I\text{\ensuremath{-}}V)$ curves associated with interband magnetotransport in a double-barrier broken-gap heterostructure using the Burt-Foreman multiband envelope function theory and the scattering matrix approach. In a sample with very thin barriers, the broadening ${\ensuremath{\Gamma}}_{0}$ of a virtual bound state with energy ${E}_{0}$ can be very large. Depending on the relative values of ${\ensuremath{\Gamma}}_{0}$ and $\ensuremath{\mid}{E}_{0}\ensuremath{-}{E}_{F}\ensuremath{\mid}$, where ${E}_{F}$ is the Fermi energy, the behavior of the $I\text{\ensuremath{-}}V$ curve can be either of Ohmic type or of resonant-tunneling type, and can be tuned from one to the other by changing the applied magnetic-field strength.