Impact of Dopant Induced States on Interband Tunneling in Nanoscale pn Junctions

Abstract

We report on an interband tunneling nanoscale Si pn junction with high doping concentration of ~5.0×10 19 cm -3 . We find that transport characteristics show step-like structure, indicating that interband tunneling is strongly influenced by dopant-induced states of the depletion region. Also, we find a current peak observed in reverse bias condition at low temperatures, indicating that the dopant states can directly contribute to interband tunneling current. This is different from pn junctions with low doping concentration of ~1.0×10 18 cm -3 , in which individual dopant atoms work as electron traps.