Strained interband resonant tunneling negative resistance diode

A double barrier tunnel diode, comprising:

• a device structure having
• a quantum well having at least one layer of an alloyed semiconductor material,
• a pair of electron injection layers on either side of the quantum well, the material of the electron injection layer having a conduction band minimum energy, and
• a barrier layer between each of the electron injection layers and the quantum well, the barrier layers having a thickness sufficiently small to permit electrons to tunnel through the barriers and through the valence bands in the quantum well and having an epitaxial relationship with the quantum well, an unalloyed material of the quantum well and a material of the barrier layer being such that the energy of heavy holes in the quantum well is greater than the conduction band minimum energy, wherein the semiconductor material of the quantum well is alloyed to produce a biaxially strained epitaxial relationship with the material of the barrier layer sufficient to reduce the energy of heavy holes in the quantum well to less than the energy of the conduction band minimum energy of the electron injection layers.