Room temperature operation of high-performance AlAs/GaAs/AlAs resonant tunneling diodes with atomically controlled barrier width

Abstract

The negative differential resistance (NDR) caused by resonant tunneling effect in AlAs/GaAs/AlAs double barrier heterostructures was systematically studied. The dependence of the resonant current on the barrier width was verified for the first time and shown to be applicable for designing device performances. In these diodes, the negative conductance can be designed to range from 2\times10^{3} to 4\times10^{4} Scm-2by varying the barrier width. One of these devices, which was optimumly designed, demonstrated a very large peak-to-valley ratio 2.3 at room temperature.