Resonant tunneling transport in ZnxBe1-xSe/ZnSe/ZnyBe1-ySe asymmetric quantum structures

Abstract

II-VI compounds are promising materials for the fabrication of room-temperature terahertz devices due to their beneficial properties like as type-I conduction band alignment, high breakdown field strength (~331 kV/cm for ZnSe vs. ~80 kV/cm for GaAs), and higher values of the conduction band offset (1.5 eV for BeSe/ZnSe vs. 0.7 eV for AlAs/GaAs). In this paper we report on numerical study of the resonant tunneling transport in ZnBeSe/ZnSe/ZnBeSe symmetric and asymmetric resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs). The negative differential resistance feature is observed in the current-voltage characteristics of the ZnSe-based RTDs. It is found that the maximum of peak-to-valley ratio (PVR) of the current density is equal to 6.025 and 7.144 at 150 K, and to 1.120 and 1.105 at 300 K for the symmetric and asymmetric RTDs, respectively. The effect of barrier heights on the frequency and output power performance of RTD devices are studied and discussed.