Abstract
We review the current investigation of heterostructure-emitter bipolar transistors (HEBT) and pay attention to confinement effects on the common-emitter current gain and the occurrence of negative-differential resistance (NDR). Three main devices with different heterostructure emitters have been grown and discussed. These devices include single-(SHEBT), double-(DHEBT), and resonant tunneling-(RT-HEBT) structure with Al0.5Ga0.5As/500Å-GaAs, Al0.5Ga0.5As/500Å-GaAs and 5-period 50Å-Al0.5Ga0.5As/50Å-GaAs superlattic emitters, respectively. With respect to current gain, it is found that Al0.5Ga0.5As/500Å-GaAs gives the best confinement effect on hole minority carriers We obtain common-emitter current gains of 180, 18, and 65 for the SHEBT, DHEBT and RT-HEBT, respectively. Besides, all of the studied devices exhibit an interesting S-shaped negative-differential resistance (NDR) resulting from the regenerative switching process. With respect to NDR performance, the Al0.5Ga0.5As/500Å-GaAs, shows the best confinement effect on the ionized electrons. The controlled voltage efficiencies are 1.43, 1.77, and 1.12 for SHEBT, DHEBT, and RT-HEBT, respectively.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 445-456 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Superlattices and Microstructures |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1995 Jun |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Materials Science
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering