CURRENT SWITCHING AND INSTABILITY IN A HETEROSTRUCTURE HOT-ELECTRON DIODE

Current switching and instability in a heterostructure GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As/GaAs diode is studied by Monte Carlo particle technique. The conduction band structure with three nonparabolic GAMMA, L and X valleys is considered. The simulated heterostructure diode consists of the nearest to cathode GaAs drift region, of the AlGaAs barrier region and of the nearest to anode GaAs region. The analysis shows that the conductance switching from the low to high state is essentially influenced by the electron transport in the barrier region. Due to the S-shaped I-V characteristic microwave oscillations have been excited. The oscillations have been numerically studied under constant applied current operation.