1987-05-22
1989-06-27
James, Andrew J.
357 16, H01L 29205, H01L 2972
Patent
active
048434477
ABSTRACT:
Current flow through the base region of a hot charge-carrier transistor is by hot majority charge-carriers (i.e. hot electrons for a hot electron transistor) which are injected into the base region at an emitter-base barrier region. This barrier region is doped with an impurity of the opposite conductivity type (p type for a hot electron transistor) and is sufficiently thin as to form a bulk unipolar diode with an adjacent part of the base region. In accordance with the invention, the emitter-base barrier region is of different bandgap semiconductor material (for example, gallium aluminum arsenide) compared with that (for example, gallium arsenide) of the base region so as to form a heterojunction. The barrier height of this barrier region is determined in part by the opposite-type doping and in part by the heterojunction and can be made large so as to increase the energy of the injected charge-carriers and hence the collector efficiency of the transistor. Furthermore the bandgap structure of the different materials can provide a step in the minority-carrier band edge (i.e. the valence band edge for a hot electron transistor) which reduces the depth of a potential well for the minority carriers, thereby effecting a reduction in the trapping of minority charge-carriers in the barrier region (2) while a desirably high barrier height for the majority carrier injection is still obtained.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4682196 (1987-07-01), Sakai et al.
Yokoyama et al, Jap. Jnl. of Appl. Phys., Vol. 23, No. 5, May 1984, pp. L311-L312, "Tunnelling . . . Heterojunctions".
Harris Jeffrey J.
Shannon John M.
Woodcock John M.
Biren Steven R.
Jackson, Jr. Jerome
James Andrew J.
U.S. Philips Corp.
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