Room temperature operation of unipolar hot electron transistors

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the kinematic and dynamical constrains involved in the design of useful unipolar hot electron transistors and we demonstrate room temperature operation of a double heterojunction hot electron transistor with a two-dimensional electron gas forming the base region. Our test structure has the narrowest ever reported base width at a mere 100Å and is the first such transistor to show current gain in excess of 10 at room temperature. The device uses an indirect, wide band gap AlSb 0.92As 0.08 emitter and the transistor base is a thin InAs layer.