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US 4,198,644 AGranted
Tunnel diode
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
InventorLeo Esaki
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A tunnel diode is disclosed wich includes a heterostructure consisting of a irst layer of GaSb.sub.1-y As.sub.y and a second layer of In.sub.1-x Ga.sub.x As. It is also disclosed that other alloys of Group III and Group V materials can be employed in a tunnel diode of the instant invention.
Claims5
A tunnel diode comprising:
- first and second layers of different semiconductor materials;
- the top of the valance band for the material of said first layer being at an energy between the energy of the bottom of the conduction band and the top of the valance band for the material of said second layer;
- the bottom of the conduction band for the material of said first layer being at an energy greater than the energy of the bottom of the conduction band for the material of said second layer;
- said first layer being degenerately doped with an excess of acceptors to the extent that the Fermi level lies in the valance band;
- said second layer being degenerately doped with an excess of donors to the extent that the Fermi level lies in the conduction band;
- and said first and second layers being interfaced to form a semiconductor heterojunction.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.