Ballistic and dissipative electron transport in semiconductor superlattices

✍ Scribed by G. Strasser; C. Rauch; K. Unterrainer; W. Boxleitner; E. Gornik

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 206 KB
• Volume: 3
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1386-9477
• DOI: 10.1016/s1386-9477(98)00230-6

✦ Synopsis

Ballistic electron transport is used to study the transmittance of GaAs=GaAlAs superlattices. In a three terminal device an energy tunable electron beam is injected via a tunneling barrier into an undoped superlattice and the transmitted current is measured as a function of the injector energy. Signiÿcant increase of the collector current is observed due to miniband conduction in the GaAs=AlGaAs superlattice. At at band condition the transfer ratio = I C=IE can be used to probe miniband position and miniband widths. Measuring the transfer ratio of superlattices at various bias conditions, a signiÿcant decrease of the miniband transmission with increasing electric ÿeld is observed, which can be attributed to the transition between coherent and incoherent transport in these superlattices. The results agree very well with theory.