The influence of strong electric field on the interface in the Al-SiO/sub 2/-n-Si Auger transistor

Abstract

The influence of strong electric field on an electron emission from semiconductor surfaces was investigated. We have measured a tunnel electron emission from the metal to the semiconductor in metal-insulator-semiconductor heterostructures with a tunnel transparent insulator layer. A tunnel electron emission from semiconductor tips to vacuum was also investigated. The using of the semiconductor tip field emitters gives a possibility to investigate the semiconductor surface at a especially strong electric field. On the other hand, the investigation of metal-insulator-semiconductor heterostructures allows to realize the emission of hot electrons from the metal to the semiconductor, and makes it possible to create the Auger transistor based on the Al-SiO/sub 2/-n-Si heterojunctions, which is one of the fastest operating semiconductor bipolar transistors. The estimations show that metal-insulator-semiconductor Auger transistor based on solid solution Ga-In-As-Sb with varying composition makes it possible to increase the highest operation frequency of Auger transistors up to 5 times compared with the silicon based Auger transistor and really approaches the highest frequency to be more then 10/sup -12/ sec/sup -1/.