US 5,497,012 AGranted

Unipolar band minima devices

AssigneeHewlett-Packard Company

InventorNicolas J. Moll

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Abstract

A semiconductor diode for providing a reduced recovery time at room temperature independent of any minority carrier recombination. The diode of the present invention comprises a first semiconductor material having a type of majority carriers and having a sub-band ordering associated with the majority carriers. The diode further comprises a second semiconductor material contacting the first material at a heterojunction, the second semiconductor material having the same type of majority carriers as the first semiconductor material and having a sub-band ordering associated with the majority carriers that is different from that of the first semiconductor material. It is theorized that the semiconductor diode of the present invention has a recovery time dependent upon scattering of carriers to various energy sub-bands within a heterojunction of the two different semiconductor materials. The diode of the present invention provides a reduced recovery time since a time of such scattering is extremely short.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A diode comprising:

a first semiconductor material having a type of majority carriers, having a main sub-band, and having
a sub-band ordering associated with the majority carriers;
a second semiconductor material arranged so as to contact the first material at a region, the second semiconductor material having the same type of majority carriers as the first semiconductor material, the second material further having a satellite sub-band, and having a sub-band ordering associated with the majority carriers that is different from that of the first semiconductor material;
a heterojunction comprising the region where the second semiconductor material contacts the first semiconductor material;
the heterojunction including an energy barrier between the main sub-band of the first semiconductor material and the satellite sub-band of the second semiconductor material;
and
a first electrical contact and a second electrical contact respectively coupled to each of the first and second semiconductor materials for applying a voltage to control a flow of the majority carriers across the heterojunction.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.