Vertical transport of hot carriers in multibarrier heterostructure diode

The vertical transport properties of multibarrier GaAs/AlGas hot electron heterostructure diode (HHED) are examined by Monte Carlo simulations. It is found that in addition to hot carrier tunneling and thermionic emission, the interband impact ionization plays a very important part in the electronic switching from low to high conduction, and in the formation of S-shaped negative differential conductivity (SNDC). The analysis indicates that SNDC and current instability originate predominantly due to electron tunneling and thermoemission across the heterointerface closest to cathode, and due to the subsequent impact ionization. The remaining heterointerfaces are of no importance in the diode operation under instability regime