Switches with double carrier confinement structures for multiple-valued logic applications

Abstract

Two switching devices with different double carrier confinement structures were fabricated. One is a GaAs switch with double InGaP barriers, another with double GaAs-InGaAs delta-doped (δ-doped) quantum wells. In the characteristics of the former, because of the two-step barrier lowering induced by the processes of the carrier charging to the injection junction and carrier confinement in wells, a double S-shaped negative differential resistance (NDR) phenomenon is observed after the onsets of successive avalanche multiplications. However, only a single NDR performance is obtained in the characteristics of the latter due to one-step barrier lowering, even though successive avalanche multiplications also occur in the device operation.