Gate-controlled resonant interband tunneling in silicon

We present gate-controlled resonant interband tunneling on silicon <111>. The investigated structure principally consists of a vertical, gated p-i-n diode grown by molecular beam epitaxy. We evaluated the surface tunnel current from a gate-induced two-dimensional electron channel into the quantized hole states of a degenerately doped deltap(+) layer. This current reveals a negative differential resistance due to resonant interband tunneling in the forward biased p-i-n diode at 200 K. Even at room temperature the influence of this tunnel mechanism is observed. The experimental results are in good agreement with simulated band diagrams and their dependence on the applied voltages. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.