On the different physical roles of hysteresis and intrinsic oscillations in resonant tunneling structures

Abstract

Electronic sources based upon resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) usually generate power by establishing limit cycles which exchange energy with storage elements in an external biasing circuit; hence, the output power in this type of implementation will always be limited by extrinsic effects. We verify the presence of multiple energy-storage mechanisms solely within the RTD and characterizes the interdependencies necessary to induce intrinsic oscillations observed in quantum mechanical simulations. Specifically, we show that a nonlinear ‘‘access’’ resistance and quantum-well inductance is responsible for the hysteresis, ‘‘plateaulike’’ behavior, and bistability associated with the intrinsic current–voltage (I–V) characteristic. Furthermore, a new circuit-level representation which accurately incorporates the nonlinear dependencies into these heretofore ‘‘linear’’ equivalent-circuit elements is used to demonstrate the different roles, as well as the degree of cooperative interplay, of the intrinsic oscillations and hysteresis in determining the overall I–V characteristics of the RTD.