Polarization-Induced Zener Tunnel Junctions in Wide-Band-Gap Heterostructures

John Simon, Ze Zhang, Kevin Goodman, Huili Xing, Thomas Kosel, Patrick Fay, and Debdeep Jena
Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 026801 – Published 7 July 2009

Abstract

The large electronic polarization in III-V nitrides allows for novel physics not possible in other semiconductor families. In this work, interband Zener tunneling in wide-band-gap GaN heterojunctions is demonstrated by using polarization-induced electric fields. The resulting tunnel diodes are more conductive under reverse bias, which has applications for zero-bias rectification and mm-wave imaging. Since interband tunneling is traditionally prohibitive in wide-band-gap semiconductors, these polarization-induced structures and their variants can enable a number of devices such as multijunction solar cells that can operate under elevated temperatures and high fields.

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  • Received 16 March 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.026801

©2009 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

John Simon*, Ze Zhang, Kevin Goodman, Huili Xing, Thomas Kosel, Patrick Fay, and Debdeep Jena

  • Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA

  • *jsimon@nd.edu

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Issue

Vol. 103, Iss. 2 — 10 July 2009

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