Experimental analysis of resonant tunneling transit time using high-frequency characteristics of resonant tunneling transistors

We systematically estimate the resonant tunneling transit time from the high-frequency characteristics of resonant tunneling transistors. It is found that the transit time across an InGaAs/InAlAs resonant tunneling structure is more than one order of magnitude shorter than that for GaAs/AlAs with the same barrier layer thickness. In addition, the obtained times agree reasonably well with calculated phase time. It is probably the elastic resonance width and not the inelastic scattering effect that mainly determines the resonant tunneling transit time.