IEEE Electron Device Letters · 1990 · 27 citations · 8 references
EngineeringElectrical EngineeringMaterials ScienceMicroelectronicsSemiconductor DevicesSemiconductor MaterialsBipolar Junction TransistorsCarrier TransportIii-v SemiconductorsSemiconductor HeterostructuresSemiconductor PhysicsWide Band Gap SemiconductorsAvalanche BreakdownBreakdown VoltageElectron Impact IonizationEnergy RelaxationHeterojunction Bipolar TransistorsHeterostructure TransistorsMean Free PathThickness Effects
The avalanche process in the collector of abrupt Al/sub 0.48/In/sub 0.52/As-In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As heterostructure bipolar transistors (HBTs) is reported. It is reported that the collector multiplication constant decreases monotonically with increasing base thickness. When the base thickness is less than the mean-free path for energy relaxation in the base, the avalanche process in the collector is enhanced by high-energy injection from the emitter. On the other hand, no such dependence is observed for long-base transistors with equilibrium base transport. These effects are expected as the emitter injection energy of 0.48 eV is appreciable compared to the impact ionization threshold of 0.83 eV in the InGaAs collector.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
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