Edge Effects and Scattering in Resonant Tunneling Electron Devices

Abstract

The electron transport mechanisms and the current-voltage characteristics in one- and two-dimensional structures are investigated in double-barrier heterostructure electron devices. The resonant tunneling characteristics due to the reduced size of semiconductor devices are theoretically studied. We compare our results with calculations obtained for the case of weak lateral confinement (3 dimensional to 2 dimensional tunneling when the gated resonant tunneling diode (GRTD) becomes two-dimensional in the well region). Using the Breit and Wigner formula in the case of weak lateral confinement, the elastic and inelastic scattering mechanism are studied. As scattering time τi decreases, the current-voltage characteristics substantially broaden and the peak-to-valley current ratio decreases. We observe the edge effect and negative transconductance in the current-voltage characteristic of the gated resonant tunneling diode.