Bistability Characteristics of GaN/AlN Resonant Tunneling Diodes Caused by Intersubband Transition and Electron Accumulation in Quantum Well

Author

Nagase, Masanori ; Tokizaki, Takashi

Author_Institution

Nat. Inst. of Adv. Ind. Sci. & Technol., Tsukuba, Japan

Volume

61

Issue

5

fYear

2014

fDate

May-14

Firstpage

1321

Lastpage

1326

Abstract

The bistability characteristics of GaN/AlN resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) grown on a sapphire substrate were investigated. The RTDs exhibit bistability characteristics with high and low resistivity switched by varying the polarity of the bias voltage. Negative differential resistance is realized in the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics after low resistivity is achieved by application of a negative bias. The calculated I-V characteristics based on self-consistent methods indicate that the bistability characteristics are caused by the accumulation of electrons in the quantum well due to intersubband transitions. Also, the bistability characteristics of GaN/AlN RTDs were discussed toward the application to the ultrafast nonvolatile memory.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; gallium compounds; resonant tunnelling diodes; sapphire; semiconductor quantum wells; wide band gap semiconductors; GaN-AlN; I-V characteristics; RTD; bias voltage polarity; bistability characteristics; current-voltage characteristics; electron accumulation; intersubband transition; negative differential resistance; quantum well; resonant tunneling diodes; sapphire substrate; self-consistent methods; ultrafast nonvolatile memory; Crystals; Gallium nitride; III-V semiconductor materials; Resonant tunneling devices; Semiconductor diodes; Switches; Bistability characteristics; GaN/AlN quantum well; intersubband transition; resonant tunneling diode (RTD); resonant tunneling diode (RTD).;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2014.2310473

Filename

6783796