Semiconductor device for switching a ballistic flow of carriers
AssigneeFujitsu Limited
InventorTatsuya Usuki
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In a semiconductor device, a channel layer of an undoped semiconductor material passes carriers therethrough ballistically, a carrier injection part injects the carriers into the channel layer with directivity to form a quantum mechanical wave of carriers, a carrier collection part provided on the channel layer recovers the carriers; a carrier drainage part provided on the channel layer absorbs the carriers that have been scattered; a carrier control part controls the flow of the carriers from the carrier injection part to the carrier collection part; and a potential control layer, provided adjacent to the channel layer, controls the potential level of the channel layer such that the potential level is uniform throughout the channel layer.
Claims12
A semiconductor device for switching a flow of ballistic carriers, comprising:
- a channel layer of an undoped semiconductor material operative for passing carriers therethrough, said channel layer having upper and lower major surfaces extending two-dimensionally, and thus in a longitudinal direction and in a lateral direction that is perpendicular to said longitudinal direction;
- carrier injection means, provided on said channel layer, for injecting carriers into said channel layer with directivity, such that the carriers comprise conducting carriers and travel ballistically through said channel layer in a predetermined direction along a carrier path, said channel layer being substantially free of any conducting carriers other than as injected by said carrier injection means;
- carrier detection means, provided on said channel layer, for detecting said carriers injected by said carrier injection means;
- carrier drainage means, provided on said channel layer, for absorbing carriers that have strayed away from said carrier path;
- and
- potential control means extending parallel to said upper and lower major surfaces of said channel layer, for controlling add thereby selectively setting a potential of said channel layer such that said selectively set potential is substantially constant in said channel layer, in each of said longitudinal and lateral directions, and enables said carrier injection means to inject carriers into said channel layers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.