Effect of spatially variable effective mass on static and dynamic properties of resonant tunneling devices.

The effect of incorporating a spatially variable effective mass in the Schrödinger equation method of resonant tunneling device modeling is investigated. It is shown that inclusion of this effect can produce an order of magnitude difference in the calculated peak current density of the static current voltage (I-V) curve for the resonant tunneling diode. Results for a particular In0.53Ga0.47As-AlAs structure show that much better agreement between theory and experiment is obtained by including this effect. Also, comparison of transient results for an In0.53Ga0.47As-In0.52Al0.48As structure shows a significant change in the diode switching transients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]