Negative effective mass mechanism of negative differential drift velocity and terahertz generation

The negative-differential-drift-velocity instability, which forms the basis of Gunn high-frequency generators, can originate from Ridley-Watkins-Hilsum or negative effective mass (NEM) mechanisms. The first mechanism is dissipative by nature. The second is mainly drift-related. Therefore, the second mechanism promises to be more effective. We show the existence of stationary oscillatory regimes in the ballistic NEM p/sup +/ p p/sup +/-diodes, which have a base in the form of a periodic system of parallel p-type quantum-well channels with base length up to 30 nm. An oscillation frequency, which depends on the base length, doping, and spatial period, as well as loads and voltage across the diode, ranges from /spl les/1 to 5 THz. We propose an additional combined quantum GaAs-AlGaAs-heterostructure, which can be overgrown on a cleaved edge of a specially grown wafer. This structure is intended to obtain electron dispersion relations with NEM sections in the useful energy range of 0.1-0.25 eV.

[1]  K. West,et al.  Cleaved edge overgrowth for quantum wire fabrication , 1993 .

[2]  H. Krömer.  Proposed Negative-Mass Microwave Amplifier , 1958 .

[3]  Ritchie,et al.  Fractional quantum Hall effect in high-mobility two-dimensional hole gases in tilted magnetic fields. , 1991, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[4]  M. Henini,et al.  Measurement of the anisotropy of the hole dispersion curves in an AlAs/GaAs/AlAs quantum well grown on a (311)A orientated substrate , 1992 .

[5]  K. Taniguchi,et al.  Monte Carlo study of hot-electron transport in an InGaAs/InAlAs single heterostructure , 1989 .

[6]  J. M. Chamberlain,et al.  Cyclotron resonance in ultra-low-hole-density narrow p-type GaAs/(Al,Ga)As quantum wells , 1997 .

[7]  V. Mitin,et al.  Generation of Terahertz Electric Oscillations by Ballistic Quantized Holes with Negative Effective Mass , 1999 .

[8]  M. Shayegan,et al.  Observation of magnetic focusing in two-dimensional hole systems , 1992 .

[9]  H. Liu,et al.  Chaotic dynamics in terahertz-driven semiconductors with negative effective mass , 2001 .

[10]  T. Someya,et al.  Microphotoluminescence characterization of cleaved edge overgrowth T-shaped InxGa1−xAs quantum wires , 1998 .

[11]  N. Zakhleniuk,et al.  Comparative analysis of zinc-blende and wurtzite GaN for full-band polar optical phonon scattering and negative differential conductivity , 2000 .

[12]  P. Crump,et al.  Growth and electrical transport properties of very high mobility two‐dimensional hole gases displaying persistent photoconductivity , 1994 .

[13]  Meier,et al.  Observation of ballistic holes. , 1988, Physical review letters.

[14]  M. Schilfgaarde,et al.  Bandstructure effect on high-field transport in GaN and GaAlN , 1997 .

[15]  Michael A. Littlejohn,et al.  Theoretical study of electron transport in gallium nitride , 1995 .

[16]  K. Hirakawa,et al.  Mobility anisotropy of two‐dimensional hole systems in (311)A GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs heterojunctions , 1994 .

[17]  M. Shur,et al.  Monte Carlo simulation of electron transport in gallium nitride , 1993 .

[18]  N. Sano,et al.  Impact‐ionization model consistent with the band structure of semiconductors , 1995 .

[19]  Michael S. Shur,et al.  Monte Carlo calculation of velocity-field characteristics of wurtzite GaN , 1997 .

[20]  Karl Hess,et al.  Nonlocal and nonlinear transport in semiconductors: Real-space transfer effects , 1995 .

[21]  K. Brennan,et al.  Electronic transport studies of bulk zincblende and wurtzite phases of GaN based on an ensemble Monte Carlo calculation including a full zone band structure , 1995 .

[22]  M. Fischetti.  Monte Carlo simulation of transport in technologically significant semiconductors of the diamond and zinc-blende structures. I. Homogeneous transport , 1991 .

[23]  Andreani,et al.  Hole subbands in strained GaAs-Ga1-xAlxAs quantum wells: Exact solution of the effective-mass equation. , 1987, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[24]  H. Eisele,et al.  Two-terminal millimeter-wave sources , 1997, 1997 Topical Symposium on Millimeter Waves. Proceedings (Cat. No.97TH8274).

[25]  Hughes,et al.  Probing the hole dispersion curves of a quantum well using resonant magnetotunneling spectroscopy. , 1991, Physical review letters.

[26]  K. West,et al.  Atomically precise superlattice potential imposed on a two‐dimensional electron gas , 1991 .

[27]  V. Gavrilenko,et al.  Negative mass cyclotron resonance maser , 1991 .

[28]  M. Henini,et al.  Probing the anisotropic dispersion of hole states in (100) and (311)A AlAs/GaAs/AlAs quantum wells , 1994 .

[29]  Junsong Cao,et al.  Simulation of negative-effective-mass terahertz oscillators , 2000 .

[30]  Effective mass enhancement of two-dimensional electrons in a one-dimensional superlattice potential , 2000 .

[31]  N. Vagidov,et al.  Terahertz ballistic current oscillations for carriers with negative effective mass , 1996 .

[32]  V. Mitin,et al.  Two-stream instability and oscillatory regimes induced in ballistic diodes and field-effect transistors , 2000 .

[33]  Michael S. Shur,et al.  Transient electron transport in wurtzite GaN, InN, and AlN , 1999 .

[34]  Z. Gribnikov,et al.  Ballistic injection of electrons with negative effective masses , 1994 .

[35]  H. L. Stormer,et al.  Formation of a high quality two-dimensional electron gas on cleaved GaAs , 1990 .

[36]  West,et al.  Nonuniversal Conductance Quantization in Quantum Wires. , 1996, Physical review letters.