Coherent tunneling in an AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterojunction captured through an analogy with a MOS contact

Yannick Baines (1) , Julien Buckley (1) , Jerome Biscarrat (1) , Gennie Garnier (1) , Matthew Charles (1) , William Vandendaele (1) , Charlotte Gillot (1) , Marc Plissonnier (1)

1 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information

Due to their wide band gaps, III-N materials can exhibit behaviors ranging from the semiconductor class to the dielectric class. Through an analogy between a Metal/AlGaN/AlN/GaN diode and a MOS contact, we make use of this dual nature and show a direct path to capture the energy band diagram of the nitride system. We then apply transparency calculations to describe the forward conduction regime of a III-N heterojunction diode and demonstrate it realizes a tunnel diode, in contrast to its regular Schottky Barrier Diode designation. Thermionic emission is ruled out and instead, a coherent electron tunneling scenario allows to account for transport at room temperature and higher.

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]

Yannick Baines, Julien Buckley, Jerome Biscarrat, Gennie Garnier, Matthew Charles, et al.. Coherent tunneling in an AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterojunction captured through an analogy with a MOS contact. Scientific Reports, 2017, 7, pp.8177. ⟨10.1038/s41598-017-08307-0⟩. ⟨cea-02202449⟩