Interband tunneling in nonparabolic semiconductors in the presence of an electric field

An attempt is made to study the interband tunneling rate for small‐gap semiconductors having Kane‐type energy bands in the presence of an external electric field, taking InSb as an example for the purpose of numerical computations. The experimentally obtained tunneling currents, which may not be limited by the factor 2, can be better explained by this formulation. Thus, the present analysis is applicable for wider ranger of electric fields and are more consistent with the experimental results than that previously proposed.