Indented barrier resonant tunneling rectifiers

Abstract

This article concerns a novel negative-conductance device consisting of a series of N laterally indented barriers which exhibits resonant tunneling under one bias polarity and simple tunneling under the opposite one, thus acting as a rectifier. Electrons undergo resonant tunneling when the bias creates a band profile with N triangular wells which can each contain a resonant state. From 1 to N the addition of each indentation can be used to increase the current density and the rectification ratio, calculated at the current-peak bias at resonance, provided that at a given bias all the states in the triangular wells align each other with the emitter Fermi energy in order to form a resonance along the structure. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.