Three-terminal silicon surface junction tunneling device for room temperature operation

This letter reports excellent negative differential conductance (NDC) characteristics at room temperature in a three-terminal silicon surface junction tunneling (Si SJT) device; with the peak-to-valley current ratio of more than two. The tunneling device was fabricated on a SIMOX wafer to achieve an extremely small bulk leakage current together with a sharp drain impurity profile. In addition, a ring-shaped gate structure was employed to eliminate the effect of the field oxide corner, resulting in the significant reduction of an excess tunneling current at the tunneling junction. As a simple circuit demonstration, gate controlled latch characteristics are also shown, which cannot be easily achieved by a two-terminal tunneling device.