Charge injection transistor based on real-space hot-electron transfer

We describe a new transistor based on hot-electron transfer between two conducting layers separated by a potential barrier. The mechanism of its operation consists of controlling charge injection over the barrier by modulating the electron temperature in one of the layers. This physical principle is different from those employed in all previous three-terminal amplifying devices-which are based either on the modulation of a potential barrier (vacuum triode, bipolar transistor, various analog transistors) or on the modulation of charge in a resistive channel (field effect transistors). In contrast to this, the present device can be compared to a hypothetical vacuum diode whose cathode has an effective electron temperature which is controlled without inertia by an input electrode ("cathode heater"). The device has been implemented in an AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction structure. One of the conducting layers is realized as an FET channel, the other as a heavily doped GaAs substrate. The layers are separated by an Al
x
Ga
1 - x
As graded barrier. Application of a source-to-drain field leads to a heating of channel electrons and charge injection into the substrate. The substrate thus serves as an anode and the FET channel represents a hot-electron cathode, whose effective temperature is controlled by the source-to-drain field. Operation of the charge injection transistor is studied at 300, 77, and 4.2 K. At 77 K the existence of power gain is demonstrated experimentally with the measured value of the mutual conductance g
m
reaching 280 mS/mm (at 300 K, g
m
≈ 88 mS/mm). The fundamental limit on the device speed of operation is analyzed and shown to be determined by the time of flight of electrons across a high-field region of spatial extent ∼ 10
^-5
cm. Practical ways of approaching this limit are discussed. The process of hot-electron injection from the channel is studied experimentally at 77 and 4.2 K with the purpose of measuring the electron temperature in the channel at different bias conditions. For not too high substrate bias the electron temperature in the channel is found to be proportional to the square of the heating voltage.