Interband tunneling transport in 2-dimensional crystal semiconductors

Interband quantum tunneling of electrons in semiconductors is of intense recent interest as the underlying transport mechanism in tunneling field-effect transistors (TFETs). The emergence of 2-dimensional (2D) semiconducting crystals
^[1]
provides a new material platform for realizing such devices. To date, interband tunneling in purely 2D semiconducting crystal junctions has not received sufficient attention, certainly not to the extent it has for 3D semiconductor p-n junctions since Zener's
^[2]
and Esaki's works
^[3]
. In this work, we derive an analytical expression for the Zener tunneling current in a 2D crystal semiconductor p-i-n junction. Using this expression, we evaluate various 2D crystal semiconductors for their tunneling current drives.