Full-band simulation of indirect phonon assisted tunneling in a silicon tunnel diode with delta-doped contacts

Full-band simulations of indirect, phonon assisted, interband tunneling are used to calculate the current-voltage response of a low-temperature molecular-beam-epitaxy-grown silicon tunnel diode with delta-doped contacts. Electron confinement in the contacts results in weak structure in the current-voltage characteristic. The structure is lost when finite lifetime effects are included. The approach uses the nonequilibrium Green function formalism in a second-neighbor sp3s* planar orbital basis. © 2001 American Institute of Physics.