Temperature effects for current transport in resonant tunneling structures

Temperature effects on current transport and the negative differential resistance for SiGe/Si and GaAlAs/GaAs resonant tunneling structures (RTS) have been studied, and the maximum working temperature Tm has been estimated. The calculations show that decreases in the carrier effective mass, well width and barrier thicknesses, lead to better temperature characteristics, implying higher peak current and larger peak‐to‐valley ratio (PVR) at higher temperature. These results are consistent with our experiment on SiGe/Si RTSs and other published experiments. The crucial role of nonresonant tunneling current Jnon in temperature effects for current transport is emphasized. Suggestions for optimizing RTS design to increase its Tm and PVR are discussed.