J. Phys. C: Solid State Phys. 18 (1985) L60SL609.

Printed in Great Britain

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Tunnelling and magneto-tunnelling effects in

n+GaAs/(AlGa)As/n-GaAs/n+GaAs devices

P S S Guimaraest, D C Taylort, B R Snellt, L Eaves?, K E Singer$, G

Hills, M A Pates, G A Toombst and F W Sheardt
t Department of Physics, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK
$ Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, UMIST, PO Box 88, Manchester,
M60 lQD, UK
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield,
S13JD, UK

Received 24 April 1985

Abstract. Oscillatory structures recently reported by Hickmott et al in the I-V characteristics

of n'GaAs/(AlGa)As/n-GaAs/n+GaAs tunnelling devices is observed at zero magnetic
field and temperatures up to 50 K, demonstrating that neutralisation of donors by magnetic
freeze-out in the n-GaAs layer is not required to observe the structure.

Recently, Hickmott et al(1984a, b) reported remarkable periodic structure in the reverse

bias derivative Z-V characteristics of n+GaAs/(AlGa)As/n-GaAs/n+GaAs tunnelling
devices in which the (A1Ga)As barrier width was 200 A. Reverse bias is achieved when
the n+GaAs layer adjacent to the (A1Ga)As is biased negative relative to the second n+
layer forming the back contact. The structure, which was periodic with AV = hw,/e,
was observed at low temperatures and only at magnetic fields above 4 T. In the above
expression hwL is the longitudinal optic (LO) phonon energy. Similar structure was
observed several years ago in the Z-Vcharacteristics of InSb metal-semiconductor tunnel
junctions (Cavenett 1972) and of Si and Ge p-n junctions (Esaki and Miyahara 1960,
Holonyak et a1 1959, Chynoweth et a1 1962). Hickmott et a1 (1984a, b) claimed that the
magnetic field induces freeze-out of electrons onto ionised donors in the n-GaAs region
of the device. The neutralisation of the donors thereby leads to a reduction of ionised
impurity scattering and permits the electrons to accelerate ballistically in the applied
electric field up to the threshold for single LO phonon emission, after which they drop to
the band edge. This process can be repeated and the sequential emission of optic phonons
was thought to be responsible for the oscillatory structure, although Hickmott et a1
(1984a, b) did not give details of how this structure actually arose. Various mechanisms
were discussed following Hickmott's talk at the San Francisco Semiconductor Confer-
ence, August 1984. Prominent among these was a model by Barker et a1 (1984, 1985)
involving electron-electron interaction between the hot carriers in the n- active layer
and the cold degenerate plasma on the other side of the (A1Ga)As barrier.
We have performed measurements between 1.5 and 70 K and at magnetic fields up
to 11.5 T on MBE layers grown at UMIST. The devices are similar to those of Hickmott

0022-3719/85/200609 + 05 $02.25 @ 1985 The Institute of Physics L605

L606 Letter to the Editor

et al. The n+ substrate, doped to 2 X 10l8~ m - is~200, pm thick. The other layers are a
buffer layer of 1pm thick 2 X 10l8cm-3 n+GaAs; 1 pm of 1 X 1015cm-3 n-GaAs; 168
ofundoped (A1Ga)As; 1 pmof2 X 10'8cm-3n+GaAs.The Alconcentrationisestimated
to vary from 0.37 (substrate side) to 0.32. Mesas of 200 pm diameter were prepared and
Au/Ge contacts were made to the top n+ and substrate layers.

I
01 0.2 03 04
VIVI

Figure 1. (a) The reverse bias I-V and ( b ) second derivative plots of device KS421/34.2 at
4 K (E = OT).

Typical results for two different samples are shown in figures 1 and 2. The derivative
plots were obtained with conventional modulation and lock-in techniques. The most
striking feature of our data, which contrast with those of Hickmott et al, is that we see
oscillatory structures in the I-Vand derivative plots (dI/d Vand d21/d V2versus V) even
at zero magnetic field (see for example figure l(b)). The amplitude (AZ/Z) of the
oscillatory structure is relatively small, typically 2% at a reverse bias of 0.2V, but
comparable with that reported by Hickmott et al. The structure is enhanced and more
clearly displayed in the derivative plots, particularly the d2Z/dV2 versus V plot. A
maximum in the second derivative plot corresponds to a minimum in the oscillatory part
of the direct I-V plot. The overall periodicity is 36 mV and corresponds to AV =
hwL/e.Our observation of oscillatory structure at zero magnetic field appears to invali-
date the conclusion reached by Hickmott et a1 that the donors in the n-GaAs layer
must be neutralised by magnetic freeze-out before the oscillatory effect can be seen.
Furthermore, we can still resolve well-defined oscillatory structure in the derivative plots
up to -50 K. For example, figure 2(c) shows very clearly resolved structure at 27 K.
At these temperatures the fraction of neutral donors in the n-GaAs region must be
negligible. Note that the poorer signal/noise ratio on figures 2(b) and 3(a) results from
the use of a small modulation voltage, which is required to resolve the fine structure (as
narrow as 1.7 mV) in the derivative plots at 4 K, and that weak sub-maxima are observ-
able in the d2Z/d V 2plot between the principal maxima.
 Letter to the Editor L607

I I
01 0.2 03 04
V(V)

Figure2. The reverse bias I-Vand derivative plots of device K421/33.2. ( a ) Direct I-Vcurve
at T = 4 K ( B = 0 T); ( b ) second derivative plot of ( a ) ; ( c ) second derivative plot at 27 K,
B = 0 T. For curves ( b ) and ( c ) the second derivative signal is zero to within experimental
error at V = 0.

We have investigated several mesa structures prepared from the same MBE layer.
There are qualitative differences between various mesas even though they were fab-
ricated from the same MBE slice, some (e.g. KS421/33.2, shown in figure 2) passing more
current at low reverse bias than others (e.g. KS421/34.2, shown in figure 1). At higher
reverse biases (>0.2 V), the currents for all mesas investigated are very similar. In all
cases where the current is large enough to detect, the same oscillatory structure with
characteristic period of A V = h q / e is observed superimposed upon it. The anomalous
behaviour of some mesas at low bias is tentatively ascribed to inhomogeneity of the
barrier thicknesses or to microchannels in the barrier (Lu et aZ1985). Our preliminary
modelling of the I-V characteristics suggest that a variation of barrier thickness of a few
per cent can produce an appreciable change in the low bias current. A particularly
interesting feature of mesas such as KS421/33.2 is that the anomalously large low bias
current is also rich in structure, as can be seen from figure 2(a). It appears that there are
two groups of peaks in the I-V characteristics of these mesas. The first group of peaks,
at low bias, starts with a sharp peak at around 15 mV followed by three other peaks,
separated by 36 mV, which progressively broaden and weaken. A second group begins
with a sharp peak at 159 mV followed by a large number of well defined peaks, up to 20
principal maxima separated by fioL/e being observed in the d2Z/d V 2plots under opti-
mum conditions of temperature and magnetic field.
We suggest that the structure centred around 15 mV can be understood in terms of
the relative positions of the Fermi levels with respect to the conduction band edge in the
n+GaAs top layer and the n-GaAs active layer on the other side of the barrier. Before
L608 Letter to the Editor

w
I
2
+
0

0.1 0.2 0.3

V(VI

2 4 6 8 10
BIT)

Figure 3. ( a ) Second derivative plot for device KS421/33.2 at 4 K and B = 5 . 5 T (EIIJ); ( b )

magnetic field dependence ( E l l J ) for device K421/33.2 of second derivative signal at 4 K and
fixed bias of 14.9 mV.

there is any appreciable tunnelling or microchannel current, the bias voltage must be
high enough to bring the edge of the conduction band in the active layer down to the
Fermi level in the degenerate n' layer. At this threshold voltage (which corresponds to
an energy of the order of the shallow donor binding energy, 6 meV) tunnelling can occur
into the travelling wave states of the conduction band continuum in the n- layer. In
the direct I-V plot, figure 2(a), this threshold is revealed as a rise in the current at
around 10mV. It is dramatically enhanced in the strong, sharp structure in the
d2Z/dV2 plots (figure 2 ( b ) ) centred at the voltage representing the inflection point of
the direct I-V curve.
Since the application of high magnetic fields has such an important effect on the I-V
 Letter to the Editor L609

characteristics reported by Hickmott et al, we have investigated our devices in longi-

tudinal and transverse fields up to 11.5 T. The qualitative form of the I-V curves is
unchanged by the field, although for a given reverse bias the current decreases as the
magnetic field increases, as observed by Hickmott et al. Also, the overall form of the
oscillatory structure is essentially unchanged by magnetic field (see figure 3(a)) although
the amplitudes of the low bias peaks in device KS421/33.2 are suppressed by a transverse
field ( B 2 4 T). In contrast to Hickmott et al, we do not observe a monotonic increase
in the amplitude of the oscillatory structure with magnetic field. However, some of the
peaks develop a narrower linewidth and/or show a resonant enhancement of amplitude
at certain values of magnetic field. An example of this behaviour is shown in figure 3(a),
where the peak at a reverse bias of 159 mV becomes extremely narrow (2.8 mV) at
-
B 5.5 T and in figure 3(b) where the amplitude of the d21/dV2curve at a constant
reverse bias of 14.9 mV is plotted as a function of magnetic field and shows a resonant
increase in amplitude at around the same magnetic field. We are currently investigating
this behaviour in more detail.
We conclude with the following general remarks. At low bias, the tunnel junction
has a very high impedance. Therefore the current is low and almost all of the applied
voltage is across the (A1Ga)Astunnel barrier. We envisage that the electrons gain energy
due to the voltage dropped across the barrier and arrive in the n- layer with a large
kinetic energy. They then lose most of this by rapid optic phonon emission before they
have travelled an appreciable distance down the active layer; Cavenett (1972) suggested
that such a process could give rise to the oscillations in the I-V characteristics of metal/
InSb junctions. At higher reverse bias the impedance of the tunnelling barrier drops
dramatically, and an increasingly large voltage is dropped across the depleted region of
the n- active layer beyond the barrier. The electrons thus arrive at the undepleted part
of the n- layer with a kinetic energy eAV' - nh%, where AV' is the voltage dropped
across the barrier and depletion layer and n is the number of phonons emitted by an
electron. We envisage that the oscillatory structure arises from the modulation of the
impedance of the neutral (low electric field) region of the n- layer. This modulation
arises from the periodically varying energy of the hot electrons arriving from the depleted
layer. The persistence of oscillatory structure up to temperatures of 50 K at which most
donors must be ionised indicates that it is not damped out by ionised impurity scattering
and appears to invalidate the recently proposed model of Leburton (1985).

This work is supported by SERC. P S S Guimaraes is supported by CNPq, Brazil.

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