Demonstration of resonant tunneling effects in metal-double-insulator-metal (MI2M) diodes
Amina Belkadi, Ayendra Weerakkody, Garret Moddel
Abstract
Abstract Although the effect of resonant tunneling in metal-double-insulator-metal (MI 2 M) diodes has been predicted for over two decades, no experimental demonstrations have been reported at the low voltages needed for energy harvesting rectenna applications. Using quantum-well engineering, we demonstrate the effects of resonant tunneling in a Ni/NiO/Al 2 O 3 /Cr/Au MI 2 M structures and achieve the usually mutually exclusive desired characteristics of low resistance ( $${R}_{0}^{DC} \sim$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>R</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>0</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>D</mml:mi> <mml:mi>C</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> <mml:mo>~</mml:mo> </mml:math> 13 kΩ for 0.035 μm 2 ) and high responsivity ( β 0 = 0.5 A W −1 ) simultaneously. By varying the thickness of insulators to modify the depth and width of the MI 2 M quantum well, we show that resonant quasi-bound states can be reached at near zero-bias, where diodes self-bias when driven by antennas illuminated at 30 THz. We present an improvement in energy conversion efficiency by more than a factor of 100 over the current state-of-the-art, offering the possibility of engineering efficient energy harvesting rectennas.