On the inversion in GaAs metal-insulator-semiconductor heterostructures

We report the discovery that thr [111] strained Si (similar to 10 Angstrom) as an interlayer between Si3N4 and (111) GaAs may allow the Fermi level to fully scan the GaAs conduction band and induct inversion electrons in GaAs. The band structure calculations indicate that the strained Si on (111) GaAs or (111) AlGaAs has a much wider band gap (0.87 eV) than the strained Si on (001) GaAs (0.34 eV). The energy levers in the quantum well formed by Si3N4/Si/(111)GaAs are almost unconfined and those of Si3N4/Si/Al0.3Ga0.7As/(111)GaAs are confined, but the confined energy level in Si conduction band is similar to 0.1 eV higher than the GaAs conduction band. Both structures may induce inversion electrons in GaAs potentially paving the way for the realization of GaAs based n-channel inversion mode metal-insulator-semiconductor transistors. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.