APPLICATIONS OF TUNNELING TO ACTIVE DIODES

Abstract

The characteristics of forward injection failure in GaAs tunnel diodes are summarized. A model involving rapidly diffusing impurities and junction traps is proposed as the failure mechanism. The diffusion and solubility of Cu in heavily doped GaAs were examined. This impurity is found to diffuse rapidly at low temperatures in p-type GaAs and is suspected of being an important contributor to the failure process. Drift experiments indicated that the rapidly diffusing species is uncharged in p-type material, contrary to expectations. The effectiveness of various procedures for removing Cu from the surface or volume of GaAs specimens have been studied. The dependence of tunneling upon uniaxial strain in Ge was studied, and a theoretical model which qualitatively accounts for the data is presented. The results of some measurements on n-type CdS crystals are reported. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 28, 1961
Accession Number
AD0257387

Entities

Organizations

  • General Electric

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Diffusion
  • Diodes
  • Failure Mode And Effect Analysis
  • Impurities
  • Low Temperature
  • Materials
  • Measurement
  • Quantum Tunneling
  • Solubility
  • Tunnel Diodes
  • Tunneling
  • Tunnels

Fields of Study

  • Materials science

Readers

  • Materials Science (Mechanical Engineering).
  • Plasma Physics.
  • Semiconductor Device Technology