Low temperature tunneling transistor
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsVolker Graf, Pierre L. Gueret, Carl A. Mueller
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Abstract
The transistor comprises two electrodes, source (12) and drain (13), with a semiconductor tunnel channel (11) arranged therebetween. A gate (14) for applying control signals is coupled to the channel. The semiconductor, at low temperatures, behaves like an insulator with a low barrier (some meV) through which charge carriers can tunnel under the influence of an applied drain voltage. The tunnel current can be controlled by a gate voltage V.sub.G which modifies the barrier height between source and drain thereby changing the tunnel probability.
Claims19
A tunneling transistor for use at an operating temperature in an environment in the range of liquid helium temperature to liquid nitrogen temperature, comprising:
- (a) doped semiconductor barrier means (11) having, at operating temperature, the composite of doping and of dimensions such that tunnel current dominates the current of thermionically excited carriers, and the difference in energy between the Fermi-level and either the conduction band minimum or the valence band maximum of the semiconductor is on the order of MeV;
- (b) a source electrode (12), connected to said semiconductor barrier means (11) at a first position;
- (c) a drain electrode (13), laterally located at a second position at a finite distance, on the order of 100 nm, from said source electrode (12), across which finite distance tunnel currents may flow in said semiconductor barrier material (11);
- (d) at least one gate electrode (14), operably juxtaposed to said semiconductor barrier material (11), positioned at a third position between said first and second positions for controlling tunneling current in said barrier material (11) by means of signals in the mV range;
- whereby a low height energy barrier permits control of the tunneling current between said source electrode (12) and said drain electrode (13) by means of signals in the mV range applied to said gate electrode (14);
- and
- (e) means for applying to said gate terminal (14) a control signal in the mV range.
A tunneling transistor according to claim 10, wherein said doped semiconductor barrier means (11) is a mixed crystal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.