Enhancement of inter-band tunneling due to low-dimensionality of lateral 2D Silicon Esaki diodes

Silicon tunnel devices are important for low power-consumption and fast-switching electronics. Inter-band tunneling current is, however, limited due to the indirect-bandgap nature of Si, but low-dimensionality of the devices may bring new effects into play. In this work, we analyze two-dimensional lateral Si Esaki diodes and first observe that inter-band tunneling is still largely mediated by phonon assistance. More importantly, however, we find that tunnel current is significantly enhanced by resonances involving dopant-atoms with deeper energy levels in the depletion region. These results experimentally illustrate the impact of atomistic effects in low-dimensional tunnel devices.