Optical studies of tunneling in double barrier diodes

Abstract

We describe time integrated and time resolved photoluminescence measurements made on symmetric and asymmetric GaAs/AlAs double barrier resonant tunneling diodes in order to explore the relationship between the optical and electrical properties. We find that the photoluminescence intensity arising from recombination in the quantum well in our structures is a complicated function of bias being determined by the details of both electron and photogenerated hole transport through the emitter and collector barriers as well as the hole dynamics in the collector depletion region. Features attributable to resonant hole tunneling are apparent in the variation of photoluminescence intensity with bias. Under high intensity photoexcitation a substantial hole current can develop which reveals itself through additional features in the current-bias characteristic.