Graphene double-barrier resonant tunneling device

An apparatus comprising:

• a fermion source nanolayer;
• a first insulating nanolayer;
• a fermion transport nanolayer;
• a second insulating nanolayer;
• a fermion sink nanolayer;
• a first contact for applying a first voltage to the fermion source nanolayer;
• a second contact for applying a second voltage to the fermion sink nanolayer;
• and
• a transport contact for enabling an electric current via the fermion transport nanolayer;
• wherein the apparatus is configured to be operated with the fermion source nanolayer and the fermion sink nanolayer biased with opposite voltage bias, wherein a current path between the fermion source nanolayer and the fermion transport nanolayer has a negative differential resistance and a current path between the fermion sink nanolayer and the fermion transport nanolayer has a negative differential resistance, enabling a negative absolute resistor.

A method comprising:

• biasing a fermion source nanolayer relative to an intermediate fermion transport nanolayer such that the fermion source nanolayer operates as a resonant quantum tunnelling fermion source and provides fermions to the intermediate fermion transport layer;
• biasing a fermion sink nanolayer relative to the intermediate fermion transport nanolayer such that the fermion sink nanolayer operates as a resonant quantum tunnelling fermion sink and sinks fermions from the intermediate fermion transport layer;
• and
• controlling the relative bias between the fermion source nanolayer and the fermion sink nanolayer to attain negative absolute resistance for an electric current via the intermediate fermion transport layer.

An apparatus comprising, in a single component:

• a first resonant quantum tunnelling fermion source configured to source fermions from a first node to a fermion transport layer;
• a second resonant quantum tunnelling fermion sink configured to sink fermions to a second node from the fermion transport layer;
• a first contact for applying a first voltage to the first node;
• a second contact for applying a second voltage to the second node;
• and
• a transport contact for enabling an electric current via the fermion transport layer;
• wherein the apparatus is configured to be operated with the first contact and the second contact biased with opposite voltage bias, wherein a current path between the quantum tunnelling fermion source and the fermion transport layer has a negative differential resistance and a current path between the quantum tunnelling fermion sink and the fermion transport layer has a negative differential resistance, enabling a negative absolute resistor.