Microwave analysis of double barrier resonant tunneling diodes

Abstract

Accurate microwave measurements up to 40 GHz have been carried out on GaAs/AlAs Double Barrier Resonant Tunneling (DBRT) diodes over the whole bias range of its DC characteristic. The resulting small-signal scattering parameters (S-parameters) have been analysed afterwards in terms of equivalent circuits. The analysis demonstrates that the most suitable equivalent circuit of the DBRT structure has to include, apart from the circuit elements used to model the Esaki tunnel diode, an intrinsic inductance which is related to the life time of the quantum well quasi-state involved in the tunneling process. The bias dependency of the equivalent circuit parameters and the maximum oscillation frequency of the DBRT device have been obtained.