Resonant tunneling of electrons in biased symmetric triangular double barrier nanostructure triodes

Abstract

The present work investigates the resonant tunneling of electrons in symmetric triangular double barrier triodes composed of GaAs-Ga1-yAlyAs nanostructures under a step bias voltage. This work employs the complex energy method to compute the resonant tunneling energy and the associated lifetimes. In the mathematical analysis of this work, the matching conditions are taken at specific points on both lateral sides of the triangular barrier. Results showed decreasing the resonant tunneling energies for both the lowest and excited states by applying step bias voltage and disappearing the lowest energy states at a specific applied bias voltage. The resonant tunneling lifetimes of the present structure exhibited nearly constant behavior at constant values of both well half-width and barrier half-thickness although the enhancement of the bias voltage. Moreover, the lifetimes of both the lowest and the first excited states increased nearly non-linearly by increasing the aluminum concentration, with the enhancement of the lowest resonant lifetimes over those values associated with the first excited states. The results showed considerable agreement with the data published in the literature for both magnitude and tendency. The present work highlights the importance of employing the mass-mismatch condition in studying heterostructures. It is found from the present study that resonant tunneling energies and their related lifetimes are more affected by the variations of the aluminum concentration in the barrier region, barrier thickness, and well width, which can be adjusted to improve the performance of the resonant tunneling triangular triodes and other nanostructure devices.