High-speed resonant-tunneling diodes made from the In0.53Ga0.47As/AlAs material system

This paper reports on double-barrier resonant-tunneling diodes that have been fabricated in the pseudomorphic In0.53Ga0.47As/AlAs material system that have peak current densities exceeding 1 x 105 A cm-2 and peak-to-valley current ratios of approximately 10 at room temperature. One of these diodes yielded oscillations up to 125 GHz, but did not oscillate at higher frequencies because of a large device capacitance. A device with a much lower capacitance is estimated to have a maximum oscillation frequency of 932 GHz and a voltage rise time of 1.5 ps in switching from the peak bias point to the valley bias point. Other reported In0.53Ga0.47As/AlAs diodes are analyzed and yield theoretical maximum oscillation frequencies over 1 THz and rise times as low as 0.3 ps