A new switching characteristics of highly doped multi-quantum well

A new type of hysteretic current-voltage characteristics, which switched from a low conductance off-state into a high conductance on-state at a threshold voltage and the high conductance state was sustained even when the bias voltage reduced below the threshold voltage, was experimentally observed for the highly doped multi-quantum well structure. The characteristics were attributed to confinement of electrons and impact ionization of the confined electrons out of the quantum wells. The test devices employing 10 periods of quantum wells were fabricated by using AlGaAs/GaAs semiconductor heterostructure and I-V characteristics were examined