Performance of resonant tunneling diodes based on the nonpolar-oriented AlGaN/GaN heterostructures

Abstract

The performance of resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) based on nonpolar-oriented AlGaN/GaN heterostructures has been theoretically investigated by numerical simulation. Simulation results show that the RTDs grown along the nonpolar orientation can yield the current-voltage (I-V ) characteristics with the peak current, the peak-to-valley ratio (PVCR), and the peak voltage of about 3.5 times and 1.5 times higher and 1.1 times lower than those of RTDs grown along the conventional polar orientation, respectively. The results also show excellent symmetry, high reproducibility of I-V characteristics, and high intrinsic response frequency.

III-nitrides based resonant tunneling diodes

“…Several calculations have been carried out to address the effect of these internal fields on the ballistic transport in III-nitride double-barrier structures [36]. Most other simulation works have been focused on improving the peak-to-valley current ratio (PVCR) and peak current density of nitride RTDs by either introducing innovative layer structures or weakening the internal fields [35,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49].…”

“…Rong et al [47] simulated nonpolar orientation and polar orientation RTDs for comparison. Although the bandgap of nonpolar m-plane AlGaN is relatively small, which causes an increased valley current, the larger electron effective mass and the symmetric barrier would cause a higher transmission coefficient, resulting in higher peak current.…”

Quantum well width and barrier Thickness effects on the perpendicular transport in polar and non-polar oriented AlGaN/GaN Resonant Tunneling Diodes

“…∆E. E T (12) In fact, the order of magnitude of both the effective electron mass and the maximum transmission coefficient, according to the literature [8], is greater in the nonpolar orientation than in the polar one which explains the increase of peak current.…”

“…In the same context of improving the electronic properties of RTDs, Rong and al. [8] investigated the influence of growth orientation of AlGaN∕GaN RTDs on the current-voltage (J-V) characteristics and they proved that the current peak and the PVR of non-polar RTDs AlGaN∕GaN are higher than polar ones. In this paper, we will use our self-developed code to first simulate the conduction band profile in polar and non-polar…”