Resonant tunneling in semiconductor multibarrier heterostructures

The effect of coupling between the electronic transverse motion and longitudinal motion is considered in the theoretical investigation of the resonant tunneling in a semiconductor multi-barriers heterostructure. A numerical calculation is carried out for rectangular and parabolic-well heterostructures consisting of ZnSe/Zn1-xCdxSe. The result indicates that the coupling effect results in not only a movement of the resonant peaks but also a reduction of the peak-to-valley ratio in the transmission spectrum. The effect of the electronic transverse motion on the higher-lying resonant states for the resonant tunneling is more remarkable for both the zero and non-zero bias voltages. The J-V characteristic formula of tunneling current density, which is different from Esaki's result, is given by using a two-dimensional approximation. The influence of temperature and mixed crystal effect on the J-V characteristic is also investigated.