The insulated gate tunnel junction triode

The gate modulated voltage breakdown of the drain diode in the MOS transistor is considered and shown to be direct electric field control of a reverse biased surface
p+-n
junction. A structure designed to isolate this effect has been suggested by Atalla and experimentally evaluated by Nathanson, et al., and by the authors. The mechanism of operation discussed involves the application of an external electric field normal to the surface of the highly doped side of the junction to produce direct field emission of carriers. The reverse biased low doped side of the junction then acts as a collector of the field-emitted carriers resulting in a net current flow across the junction. Using the Atalla structure, a model is presented and a quantitative theory is developed to explain and predict the device performance. It is found that the actual device may be represented as an MOS transistor in series with an "ideal" field-controlled tunnel junction, and that the performance of the actual device can never be better than that of the limiting MOS transistor. The theoretical characteristics of the ideal field-controlled tunnel junction are derived and found to agree closely with the experimental results. It is shown that, at the present time, the device is limited by the "ideal" tunnel junction region and not by the series MOS transistor.