Intervalley scattering in gallium arsenide avalanche diodes

The velocity-field characteristic of electrons in GaAs has been shown to have an important bearing on the properties of IMPATT diodes fabricated from this material. In this letter, the manner in which this characteristic varies with frequency is discussed and the properties of conventional and high-efficiency structures are compared. It is concluded that the effects of intervalley scattering are important, even in X band, and become increasingly significant as frequency increases.