Semiconductor device in particular a hot electron transistor.

摘要

A semiconductor device having a plurality of semiconductor layers of different composition, such as a hot electron transistor, comprising a majority carrier injection (emitter) region (21), a control (base) region (17) and a majority carrier extracting (collector) region (10, 12) provided respectively with an emitter electrode (22), a base electrode (18) and a collector electrode (11) and further comprising an emitter potential barrier region (19) and a collector potential barrier region (13). The base region (17) is made of undoped semiconductor material and one of the adjacent potential barriers is asymmetrically doped to generate a two-dimensional charge-carrier gas confined in a potential well at the interface (15) of the base region (17) and the doped potential barrier region. The required doping can be achieved by the provision of at least one monoatomic dopant layer (16) located in a narrow low band-gap semiconductor layer (14) asymmetrically positioned in the wide band-gap semiconductor collector potential barrier region (13). A low resistance ohmic contact is made to the two-dimensional charge carrier gas, ensuring low resistance and high switching speed. An undoped layer (19 sec ) can be further interposed between the emitter region (21) and the emitter potential barrier region (19 min ). A two-dimensional electron gas is then induced under applied bias at the interface between said layer (19 sec ) and said region (19 min ) ensuring a sharp energy distribution of electrons tunneling through the emitter potential barrier region (19 min ) and thus rapid rise time and high gain in operation.