Impact Ionization Effect in Complementary CHarge Injection Transistor

We report for the first time an analysis of impact ionization phenomena occurring in a complementary charge injection transistor. We observed the real-space transfer of minority carriers generated by impact ionization and collected by the collector contact. From the measured collector current and by means of a simple model, we estimated the electron impact ionization coefficient of In_0.53Ga_0.47As. Experimental data support a recent theory reporting a soft threshold for impact ionization with a "significant" ionization rate at low electric fields.