Majority carrier transistor based on voltage-controlled thermionic emission

Abstract

A new type of transistor is proposed based on gate-controlled charge injection in unipolar semiconductor structures. Its design has some similarity with the recently fabricated triangular barrier diodes but contains an additional input circuit which allows an independent control of the barrier height for thermionic emission. This circuit is provided by a MOS gate on the semiconductor surface. In the proposed device the current flows perpendicular to the semiconductor surface over a planar potential barrier controlled by the gate. The static transconductance characteristics and dynamical response are analyzed. The characteristic response time is limited by the time of flight of electrons across the structure and can be in the picosecond range. The gate voltage required to switch the output current at room temperature is of order 0.2 V.