# Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Resonant Tunneling Transistor

## TL;DR

Researchers developed a new three-terminal gallium nitride transistor that enhances performance by enabling tunable negative differential resistance and current amplification.

## Contribution

The novel three-terminal GaN RTT design enables gate-tunable NDR and current amplification, overcoming limitations of conventional RTDs.

## Key findings

- The series-connected RTT achieves an NDR voltage span of 4.1 V, significantly higher than 0.41 V in conventional RTDs.
- The parallel RTT configuration provides 10 times amplification of peak current through gate voltage regulation.
- The integration of RTD and HEMT via epitaxial growth enables precise control of carrier concentration in the HEMT channel.

## Abstract

Semiconductor devices based on quantum tunneling hold immense promise for developing multi‐valued logic, memory, and oscillators. Recently, two‐terminal gallium nitride (GaN) resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) have been extensively studied due to their inherent negative differential resistance (NDR) and superior properties of wide bandgap materials. However, conventional GaN RTDs lack current gain, limiting functional modulation and performance improvement. Here, we demonstrate three‐terminal GaN resonant tunneling transistors (RTTs), which comprise an AlN/GaN double‐barrier RTD integrated with a GaN high‐electron‐mobility transistor (HEMT) through epitaxial growth. The GaN RTTs exhibit gate‐tunable NDR behavior through precise control of carrier concentration in the HEMT channel. Remarkably, the series‐connected RTT achieves an NDR voltage span of 4.1 V compared to the 0.41 V span in conventional RTDs, and the parallel‐configured RTT achieves 10 times amplification of peak current by regulating gate voltage. This work provides a feasible approach to tune NDR performance and offers a new opportunity for engineering the functionality of nitride‐based electronics, which is highly expected to alleviate the challenge posed by the saturation of Moore's law and motivate the development of beyond binary logic systems.

Three‐terminal GaN semiconductor resonant tunneling transistors (RTTs), which comprise an double‐barrier AlN/GaN/AlN resonant tunneling diode integrated with a GaN high‐electron‐mobility transistor (HEMT) through epitaxial growth in series and parallel configuraions, respectively. The GaN RTTs exhibit gate‐tunable negative differential resistance behavior through precise control of carrier concentration in the HEMT channel.