Heteroelectronic injection transistors for room-temterature operation

Abstract

While early work on such devices focussed on low-temperature operation, because of small gain and small collector base barriers' ', advances in material technology have lead to successful operation of hot-electron transistors at room temperature, with materials lattice matched to GaSb3, or to InP4. These devices achieve respectable current gain by the use of a significant offset between the emitter injection energy and the collector barrier to allow for energy loss by hot carriers as they traverse the base, and to reduce quantum mechanical reflection at the collector.