Resonant tunneling permeable base transistor based pulsed oscillator

Abstract

In this paper, we show that a three terminal resonant tunneling transistor can be used to obtain pulsed operation of a resonant tunneling based oscillator. We have developed a technology to embed nm-sized metallic features in close vicinity to semiconductor heterostructures which allows a direct integration of resonant tunneling diodes inside the channel of a permeable base transistor, thus forming a resonant tunneling permeable base transistor (RT-PBT). When biased in the NDR-region, the RT-PBT works as a negative resistance oscillator. A fundamental oscillation frequency of 800 MHz was detected, with higher harmonics up to 2.6 GHz. Varying the gate voltage shifted the oscillation frequency, showing the possibility of using the RT-PBT as a voltage controlled oscillator.