摘要:
Current flow through the base region (3) of a hot charge-carrier transistor is by hot majority charge-carriers (i.e. hot electrons for a hot electron transistor) which are collected at a base-collector barrier (4). This barrier may be formed by a semiconductor region (4) which is doped with impurity of the opposite conductivity type ( p type for a hot electron transistor) and which is sufficiently thin as to form a bulk unipolar diode with an adjacent part of the base region (3). In accordance with the invention, one or more layers (5 a ) of wider-bandgap semiconductor material (for example, gallium aluminium arsenide) are present within the collector region (for example, of gallium arsenide) to form one or possibly even a series of heterojunctions (51) each providing an electric field which retards the hot charge-carriers in the collector region (5, 5 a , 5 b , 6). The retarding field cools the hot charge-carriers after collection so reducing a tendency to create electron-hole pairs by ionization. By spacing the first heterojunction (51) from the base-collector barrier (4), a high collector field is maintained in the narrow bandgap material (5) in the immediate vicinity of the potential maximum of the collector barrier (4) so maintaining a high collection efficiency.
摘要:
This invention embodies devices comprising Group III-V compound semiconductors in which p or n or both p and n regions are formed by a superlattice (13, 14) selectively doped with an amphoteric Group IV element dopant (23) selected from carbon, germanium and silicon. The superlattice includes a plurality of periods (20), each including two layers (21, 22). Depending on the conductivity type, only one of the layers in the periods forming the superlattice region of said type of conductivity is selectively doped with said dopant, leaving the other layer in these periods undoped. The superlattice is formed by Molecular Beam Epitaxy technique, and the dopant is incorporated into respective layers by delta-doping as in a sheet centrally deposited between monolayers forming the respective layers of the period. Each period includes 5 to 15 monolayers deposited in the two layers in a numerical ratio corresponding to a cation compositional ratio in the compound semiconductor. Low growth temperatures, e.g. ranging from 410 to 450°C lead to mirror-like surfaces. For a compound semiconductor Ga 0.47 In 0.53 As, the GaAs/InAs ordered superlattices with eight monolayers per period are grown in a ratio of 0.47/0.53. At free carrier concentrations of 10¹⁶cm⁻³, carrier mobilities of 200 and 2300 cm² /Vs for p-type and n-type are obtained with carbon as the amphoteric dopant.
摘要:
For improvement in operation speed, there is provided a heterojunction bipolar transistor comprising, a) an emitter region (27) formed of a first semiconductor material of a first conductivity type, b) a base region (24) formed of a second semiconductor material of a second conductivity type opposite to the first conductivity type and forming a first junction together with the emitter region, and c) a collector region (23) formed of a third semiconductor material of the first conductivity type and forming a second junction together with the base region, the heterojunction bipolar transistor has a plurality of abrupt potential discontinuities including first and second abrupt potential discontinuities produced in succession to provide kinetic energies to a carrier injected from the emitter region, respectively, and the first abrupt potential discontinuity is produced at one of the first and second junctions, thereby allowing the carrier to move over a distance longer than a linear free path of the carrier in the ballistic manner.
摘要:
A heterojunction semiconductor device comprises an unipolar transistor comprising, a collector layer (3), a base layer (5), a collector side barrier layer (4) provided between said collector layer (3) and base layer (5), an emitter layer (8), and an emitter side barrier layer (7) provided between said base layer (5) and emitter layer (8) and having a thickness for tunneling a carrier from said emitter (8) and base (5) layers, said carrier being injected into the base layer (5) according to the application of a predetermined voltage between said emitter and base, said base layer (5) having a superlattice means (6), comprising a plurality of thin barrier layers (6B) and thin well layers (6W) for forming a mini-band through which the injected carrier can move and a mini-band gap with which the injected carrier collides.
摘要:
A semiconductor device comprises two layers (1,3) of semiconductor material each of different conductivity type, with a region (5) of semiconductor material sandwiched between the layers (1,3). The material of which the region (5) is formed is of the same composition as the first layer (1) at the edge of the region adjacent to the first layer, and varies in composition linearly on the running average in the direction between the layers (1,3) such that the region (5) forms a heterojunction with the second layer (3).
摘要:
A resonant-tunneling heterojunction bipolar transistor (RHBT) device, having a superlattice structure and a PN junction, includes an emitter layer (17), a base layer (14), a collector layer (13) operatively facing the base layer to form a PN junction at the face between the base layer and the collector layer, and a superlattice structure (16) including at least one quantum well defining a sub-band of energy at which carriers resonant-tunnel therethrough, formed at least in the emitter layer and operatively facing the base layer. The RHBT has differential negative resistance characteristics for realizing a variety of logic circuits and includes an electron resonance and a positive hole resonance, for which the generation condition is changeable in response to a mole fraction of material of the emitter layer. Such an RHBT, unlike a prior RHET, can be made to operate satisfactorily at normal ambient temperatures with adequate current gain.
摘要:
A high mobility p channel semiconductor device (such as a field-effect transistor) is formed suitable for operation at room temperature, for example in a circuit with an n channel device. Whereas hole modulation doping both in single heterojunction and in heterostructure quantum well devices provides a significant increase in hole mobility only at cryogenic temperatures, the present invention employs less than 5nm wide and very deep quantum wells 1 (about 0.4 eV and deeper) to reduce the effective mass of "heavy" conduction holes for motion in the plane of the quantum well 1. Hole mobilities at 300 degrees K are obtained in excess of 2.5 times those in bulk material of the same narrow bandgap semiconductor as used for the quantum well 1. In a particular example such a quantum well 1 is formed of GaAs (or GaInAs) between AlAs barrier layers 2.