Tunneling current in Si-doped n type-GaAs heterostructures infrared emitter

Abstract

In the present work, we measured the forward bias current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of Si-doped n type gallium arsenide (GaAs) heterostructures infrared emitter over a wide temperature range from 350 to 77 K. Results showed that the slopes of the exponential curve changed slowly with temperature. The analysis of the various tunneling mechanisms indicated that the tunneling current varied approximately as a function of ~ exp(- aE_g + beV) where the parameters a and b varied indistinctively with temperature and voltage. The dependence of forward tunneling current on the temperature and bias can be explained by thermally induced band gap shrinkage and bias induced route change respectively. These results will be helpful for application of the optoelectronics device in both high and low temperature ambiences.

Keywords

infrared emitter / tunneling / characteristic energy / band gap / thermal stress

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO), India, for financial assistance, and one of the authors, Pradip Dalapati is thankful to DRDO for the award of a research fellowship.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg