Valley Current Reduction in Lateral Resonant Tunneling

Abstract

In resonant tunneling devices it is advantageous to minimize the valley current to enable clear digital switching and reduce off-state power dissipation. High current peak-to-valley ratio also gives high power output and better dc-to-ac conversion efficiency1. In a double-barrier resonant tunneling (DBRT) device, the current peak-to-valley ratio is limited even in the ballistic transport regime,2 since the transmission minimum has a finite value.