TIME-DEPENDENT BEHAVIOR OF A RESONANT-TUNNELING DIODE

By use of the improved optical model we have recently developed, it is shown that the resonant-tunneling current through a double-barrier structure is made up of two different components; one responds fast to an external signal and another component responds slowly to it. The fast component is carried by electrons that emit longitudinal-optical phonons during transport and reduce the time delay to pass through the structure, while the transverse energy of electrons responsible for the slow component is not sufficiently high to emit longitudinal-optical phonons in the well. The ratio of the two components depends on electron concentrations in the emitter of the double-barrier structure. © 1995 The American Physical Society.