A gallium arsenide ballistic transistor?
Abstract
Last year, an experimental demonstration provided the most convincing evidence to date of the existence of true ballistic electron transport in semiconductors. The experiment involved the use of a technique known as 'electron energy spectroscopy' in the study of the energy distribution of electrons traveling through a device. The study included the measurement of the ballistic transport of electrons in a gallium arsenide heterostructure hot-electron transistor. This device has received the name Tunneling Hot-Electron Transfer Amplifier (THETA). The THETA device has a vertical structure which is grown by molecular-beam epitaxy. A description is given of a THETA device in which the emitter, the base, and the collector are all made of heavily doped n-type GaAs, separated by thin layers of undoped AlGaAs. When no voltage is applied across the base-collector heterojunction, essentially only ballistic electrons are calculated.
- Publication:
-
IEEE Spectrum
- Pub Date:
- February 1986
- Bibcode:
- 1986IEEES..23...45N
- Keywords:
-
- Electron Trajectories;
- Gallium Arsenides;
- Molecular Beam Epitaxy;
- Volt-Ampere Characteristics;
- Aluminum Gallium Arsenides;
- Doped Crystals;
- Electron Energy;
- Spectrometers;
- Traveling Charge