A switchable high-sensitivity strain sensor based on piezotronic resonant tunneling junctions

Developing emerging technologies in Internet of Things and artificial intelligence requires high-speed, low-power, high-sensitivity, and switchable-functionality strain sensors capable of sensing subtle mechanical stimuli in complex ambience. Resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) are the good candidate for such sensing applications due to the ultrafast transport process, lower tunneling current, and negative differential resistance. However, notably enhancing sensing sensitivity remains one of the greatest challenges for RTD-related strain sensors. Here, we use piezotronic effect to improve sensing performance of strain sensors in double-barrier ZnO nanowire RTDs. This strain sensor not only possesses an ultrahigh gauge factor (GF) 390 GPa^(−1), two orders of magnitude higher than these reported RTD-based strain sensors, but also can switch the sensitivity with a GF ratio of 160 by adjusting bias voltage in a small range of 0.2 V. By employing Landauer–Büttiker quantum transport theory, we uncover two primary factors governing piezotronic modulation of resonant tunneling transport, i.e., the strain-mediated polarization field for manipulation of quantized subband levels, and the interfacial polarization charges for adjustment of space charge region. These two mechanisms enable strain to induce the negative differential resistance, amplify the peak-valley current ratio, and diminish the resonant bias voltage. These performances can be engineered by the regulation of bias voltage, temperature, and device architectures. Moreover, a strain sensor capable of electrically switching sensing performance within sensitive and insensitive regimes is proposed. This study not only offers a deep insight into piezotronic modulation of resonant tunneling physics, but also advances the RTD towards highly sensitive and multifunctional sensor applications.

Development of a simple two-step lithography fabrication process for resonant tunneling diode using air-bridge technology

This article reports on the development of a simple two-step lithography process for double barrier quantum well(DBQW)InGaAs/AlAs resonant tunneling diode(RTD)on a semi-insulating indium phosphide(InP)substrate using an air-bridge technology.This approach minimizes processing steps,and therefore the processing time as well as the required resources.It is particularly suited for material qualification of new epitaxial layer designs.A DC performance comparison between the proposed process and the conventional process shows approximately the same results.We expect that this novel technique will aid in the recent and continuing rapid advances in RTD technology.

GaAs-based resonant tunneling diode:Device aspects from design,manufacturing,characterization and applications

This review article discusses the development of gallium arsenide(GaAs)-based resonant tunneling diodes(RTD)since the 1970s.To the best of my knowledge,this article is the first review of GaAs RTD technology which covers different epitaxialstructure design,fabrication techniques,and characterizations for various application areas.It is expected that the details presented here will help the readers to gain a perspective on the previous accomplishments,as well as have an outlook on the current trends and future developments in GaAs RTD research.

Fabrication of an AlAs/In_(0.53)Ga_ ( 0.47)As/InAs Resonant Tunneling Diode on InP Substrate for High-Speed Circuit Applications

A high performance AlAs/In0.53 Ga0.47 As/InAs resonant tunneling diode （RTD） on InP substrate is fabricated by inductively coupled plasma etching. This RTD has a peak-to-valley current ratio （PVCR） of 7. 57 and a peak current density Jp = 39.08kA/cm^2 under forward bias at room temperature. Under reverse bias, the corresponding values are 7.93 and 34.56kA/cm^2 . A resistive cutoff frequency of 18.75GHz is obtained with the effect of a parasitic probe pad and wire. The slightly asymmetrical current-voltage characteristics with a nominally symmetrical structure are also discussed.

Simulation and Experimental Research on a Schottky Gate Resonant Tunneling Transistor

A Schottky gate resonant tunneling transistor （SGRTT） is fabricated. Relying on simulation by ATLAS software,we find that the gate voltages can be used to control the current of SGRTT when the emitter terminal is grounded and a positive bias voltage is applied to the collector terminal. When the collector terminal is grounded, the gate voltages can control the peak voltage. As revealed by measurement results, the reason is that the gate voltages and the electric field distribution on emitter and collector terminal change the distribution of the depletion region.

Resonant tunneling and quantum fluctuation in a driven triple-well system

The influence of parameters such as the strength and frequency of a periodic driving force on the tunneling dynamics is investigated in a symmetric triple-well potential. It is shown that for some special values of the parameters, tunneling could be enhanced considerably or suppressed completely. Quantum fluctuation during the tunneling is discussed as well and the numerical results are presented and analysed by virtue of Floquet formalism.

Design and Realization of Resonant Tunneling Diodes with New Material Structure

A new material structure with Al 0.22Ga 0.78As/In 0.15Ga 0.85As/GaAs emitter spacer layer and GaAs/In 0.15- Ga 0.85As/GaAs well for resonant tunneling diodes is designed and the corresponding device is fabricated.RTDs DC characteristics are measured at room temperature. Peak-to-valley current ratio and the available current density for RTDs at room temperature are computed.Analysis on these results suggests that adjusting material structure and optimizing fabrication processes will be an effective means to improve the quality of RTDs.

Comparison and Analysis of Two Microwave Equivalent-Circuit Models for Resonant Tunneling Diode

The distinction between two microwave equivalent-circuit models,quasi Esaki tunneling model (QETM) and quantum well injection transit model (QWITM),for the resonant tunneling diode (RTD) is discussed in details,and two groups of circuit parameters are extracted from experiment data by the least square fit method.Both theory analysis and the comparison of fit results demonstrate that QWITM is much more precise than QETM.In addition,the rationality of QWITM circuit's parameters confirms it too.On this basis,the resistive frequency is calculated,whose influence factors and improvement method are simply discussed as well.

Macroscopic resonant tunneling in an rf-SQUID flux qubit

We have observed the macroscopic resonant tunneling of magnetic flux between macroscopically distinct quantum states in a superconducting flux qubit. The dependences of the macroscopic resonant tunneling on the barrier height of the potential well, the flux bias and the initial state are investigated. Detailed measurements of the tunneling rate as a function of the flux bias reveal the feature of the quantum noise in the superconducting flux qubit.

Inter-Well Coupling and Resonant Tunneling Modes of Multiple Graphene Quantum Wells

We investigate the inter-well coupling of multiple graphene quantum well structures consisting of graphenesuperlattices with different periodic potentials.The general form of the eigenlevel equation for the bound states of thequantum well is expressed in terms of the transfer matrix elements.It is found that the electronic transmission exhibitsresonant tunneling peaks at the eigenlevels of the bound states and shifts to the higher energy with increasing the incidentangle.If there are N coupled quantum wells,the resonant modes have N-fold splitting.The peaks of resonant tunnelingcan be controlled by modulating the graphene barriers.

Solid-state resonant tunneling thermoelectric refrigeration in the cylindrical double-barrier nanostructure

A solid-state thermoelectric refrigerator with a cylindrical InP/InAs/InP double-barrier heterostructure is proposed. Based on the ballistic electron transport and the asymmetrical transmission, we derive the expressions of the performance parameters of this refrigerator. The cooling rate rather than the coefficient of performance is affected by the area of the inner cylinder. Then through the numerical simulation, a triangular cooling rate region is found with respect to the chemical potential and bias voltage; further, that it is because of the small full width at half maximum of the transmission resonance and the linear relationship between the energy position of resonance and the bias voltage. These tunable results might supply some guide to the cooling in tiny components or devices.

Comparison of resonant tunneling diodes grown on freestanding GaN substrates and sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy

AlN/GaN resonant tunneling diodes(RTDs)were grown separately on freestanding Ga N(FS-GaN)substrates and sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy(PA-MBE).Room temperature negative differential resistance(NDR)was obtained under forward bias for the RTDs grown on FS-GaN substrates,with the peak current densities(Jp)of 175-700 kA/cm^(2)and peak-to-valley current ratios(PVCRs)of 1.01-1.21.Two resonant peaks were also observed for some RTDs at room temperature.The effects of two types of substrates on epitaxy quality and device performance of GaN-based RTDs were firstly investigated systematically,showing that lower dislocation densities,flatter surface morphology,and steeper heterogeneous interfaces were the key factors to achieving NDR for RTDs.

Resonant tunneling through double-barrier structures on graphene

Quantum resonant tunneling behaviors of double-barrier structures on graphene are investigated under the tightbinding approximation. The Klein tunneling and resonant tunneling are demonstrated for the quasiparticles with energy close to the Dirac points. The Klein tunneling vanishes by increasing the height of the potential barriers to more than 300 meV. The Dirac transport properties continuously change to the Schro¨dinger ones. It is found that the peaks of resonant tunneling approximate to the eigen-levels of graphene nanoribbons under appropriate boundary conditions. A comparison between the zigzag- and armchair-edge barriers is given.

Piezoelectric polarization and quantum size effects on the vertical transport in AlGaN/GaN resonant tunneling diodes

In this work,the electronic properties of resonant tunneling diodes（RTDs） based on GaN-AlxGa（1-x）N double barriers are investigated by using the non-equilibrium Green functions formalism（NEG）.These materials each present a wide conduction band discontinuity and a strong internal piezoelectric field,which greatly affect the electronic transport properties.The electronic density,the transmission coefficient,and the current–voltage characteristics are computed with considering the spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations.The influence of the quantum size on the transmission coefficient is analyzed by varying GaN quantum well thickness,AlxGa1-xN width,and the aluminum concentration xAl.The results show that the transmission coefficient more strongly depends on the thickness of the quantum well than the barrier;it exhibits a series of resonant peaks and valleys as the quantum well width increases.In addition,it is found that the negative differential resistance（NDR） in the current–voltage（I–V） characteristic strongly depends on aluminum concentration xAl.It is shown that the peak-to-valley ratio（PVR） increases with xAlvalue decreasing.These findings open the door for developing vertical transport nitrides-based ISB devices such as THz lasers and detectors.

High-fidelity resonant tunneling passage in three-waveguide system

An N-stage three-waveguide system is proposed to improve the robustness and the fidelity of the resonant tunneling passage.The analytic solutions to the tunneling dynamics at the output are derived.When the number of subsystems increases,tunneling efficiency approaches to 100%in a large range and resonant tunneling is robust against variations in the phase mismatch and peak tunneling rate.

SWITCHING CHARACTERISTICS AND ANALYSIS OF RESONANT TUNNELING DIODES

Resonant tunneling diode （RTD） of AlAs/InGaAs/AlAs double barrier-single well structure was designed and fabricated. The devices showed current-voltage characteristics with peak-valley current ratio of 4 ： 1 at room temperature. The scattering parameter of RTD was measured by using an HP8510（C） network analyzer. Equivalent circuit parameters were obtained by curve fitting and optimized. The RTD switching time was estimated using the measured capacitance and average negative differential resistance. The minimum rise time of the sample was estimated to be 21 ps.

Macroscopic resonant tunneling in an rf-SQUID flux qubit under a single-cycle sinusoidal driving

We experimentally demonstrate the observation of macroscopic resonant tunneling（MRT） phenomenon of the macroscopic distinct flux states in a radio frequency superconducting quantum interference device（rf-SQUID） under a singlecycle sinusoidal driving.The population of the qubit exhibits interference patterns corresponding to resonant tunneling peaks between states in the adjacent potential wells.The dynamics of the qubit depends significantly on the amplitude,frequency,and initial phase of the driving signal.We do the numerical simulations considering the intra-well and interwell relaxation mechanism,which agree well with the experimental results.This approach provides an effective way to manipulate the qubit population by adjusting the parameters of the external driving field.

Spin injection in a ferromagnet/resonant tunneling diode heterostructure

The spin transport property of a ferromagnet （FM）/insulator （Ⅰ）/resonant tunneling diode （RTD） heterostructure was studied. The transmission coefficient and spin polarization in a multilayered heterostructure was calculated by a Schrdinger wave equation. An Airy function formalism approach was used to solve this equation. Based on the transfer matrix approach,the transmittivity of the structure was determined as a function of the Feimi energy and other parameters. The result shows that the spin polarization induced by the structure oscillates with the increasing Fermi energy of the FM layer. While the thickness of the RTD is reduced,the resonant peaks become broad. In the heterostructure,the spin polarization reaches as high as 40% and can be easily controlled by the external bias voltage.

Quantum Coupling Effect between Quantum Dot and Quantum Well in a Resonant Tunneling Photon-Number-Resolving Detector

Excited states of lnAs quantum dots （QDs） can be energetically coupled with the confined level of OaAs quantum wells （QWs） in a thin-barrier resonant tunneling diode （RTD）. Single charge variation in the coupled QD can effectively switch on/off the resonant tunneling current passing through RTD, not only for emcient single-photon detection but also for photon-number-resolving detection. We present the study of the Q,D-QW coupling effect in the quantum dot coupled resonant tunneling diode （QD-cRTD） and figure out important factors for further improving the detector performance.

Monolithic Integration of GaAs-Based Resonant Tunneling Diode and High Electron Mobility Transistor

The resonant tunneling diode (RTD) is a kind of novel ultra-high speed and ultra-high frequency negative differential resistance nanoelectronic device. Integration of RTD and other three-terminal compound semiconductor devices is one important direction of high speed integrated circuit development. In this paper, monolithic integration technology of RTD and high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) based on GaAs substrate was discussed. A top-RTD and bottom-HEMT material structure was proposed and epitaxyed. Based on wet chemical etching, electron beam lithography, metal lift-off and air bridge technology, RTD and HEMT were fabricated on the same wafer. The peak-to-valley current ratio of RTD is 4 and the peak voltage is 0.5 V. The maximal transconductance is 120 mS/mm for a 0.25 μm gate length depletion mode HEMT. Current levels of two devices are basically suited. The results validate the feasibility of the designed integration process.