High performance aluminum arsenic intraband resonant microwave devices

We report on GaAs/AlAs triple-barrier quantum well intraband (TBQWI) heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on n⁺ GaAs substrate. Heterostructure quality was evaluated by X-ray diffraction and photoluminescence spectrum measurements. The position of the broad peak near 65.84° corresponds well to the diffraction from the (4 0 0) face of AlAs layers assuming intensity of total AlAs spacers and barriers. The 10K photoluminescence (PL) data has a strong peak at 8140 Å. The PL spectrum is dominated by a sharp peak centered at the emission energy of 1.52 eV attributed to the energy of e1-hh bond exciton of GaAs layer. TBQWI heterostructures were grown and processed into resonant tunneling diode (RTD). Room temperature electrical measurement of the TBQWI RTD yielded maximum peak to valley current ratio (PVCR) of 120 with peak current density (J_p) of 2.1 kA/cm². The high PVCR of this GaAs/AlAs TBQWI RTD is, to the better of our knowledge, one of the higher PVCRs obtained in any intraband tunnel device.