Memory switching effects in a-Si/c-Si heterojunction bipolar structures

Author

Samuilov, V.A. ; Bondarionok, E.A. ; Shulman, D. ; Pulfrey, David L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., British Columbia Univ., Vancouver, BC, Canada

Volume

13

Issue

8

fYear

1992

Firstpage

396

Lastpage

398

Abstract

The authors report a three-terminal undoped amorphous silicon (a-Si)/p-n crystalline silicon (c-Si) structure, which exhibits OFF and ON states. An OFF state is characterized by a current in the structure in the low nanoampere range due to the large resistance of the undoped a-Si layer, while in the ON state the structure exhibits a large conductance and its current is determined in practice by the load resistance. Reversible switching between the two states with a rise time of about 40 ns and a fall time of about 200 ns was achieved by applying appropriate positive or negative current pulses to the base of the c-Si p-n junction. The structure can be integrated into a standard bipolar process, and, being of a size suitable for VLSI applications, may be useful as a basic three-terminal memory cell.<>

Keywords

amorphous semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; heterojunction bipolar transistors; semiconductor storage; semiconductor switches; silicon; 200 ns; 40 ns; OFF state; ON state; Si; VLSI; bipolar process; fall time; heterojunction bipolar structures; load resistance; memory switching effects; negative current pulses; positive current pulses; reversible switching; rise time; three-terminal memory cell; three-terminal structure; Amorphous silicon; Bonding; Crystallization; Heterojunctions; P-n junctions; Resistors; Senior members; Switches; Very large scale integration; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/55.192770

Filename

192770