Construction and performance of epitaxial transferred electron oscillators

Abstract

A method is given for making transferred electron oscillators (Gunn diodes) by alloying tin contacts on to epitaxial GaAs layers. The properties of the oscillators have been measured. It is shown that two-thirds of the layers produced some devices with a c.w. output greater than 10 mW at X band frequencies. On a typical layer 70 per cent of the devices made gave more than 2 mW, and 30 per cent more than 20 mW. The dependence of output power and efficiency on bias voltage was also studied.