UNIT - IV

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 Microwave Solid State Devices

 Microwave tunnel diode.

 Transferred electron devices.
 Gunn-effect diodes.
 RWH theory, modes of operations.
 Avalanche transit time devices.
 IMPATT diode.
 TRAPATT diode.
 BARITT diode.
 Pin diodes.
 Varactor diodes.
 Crystal detectors.

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 Microwave Solid State Devices

Introduction
•Special electronics effects encountered at microwave
frequencies severely limit the usefulness of transistors in most
circuit applications.
•Using vacuum tubes for low power applications become
impractical.
•Need for small sized microwave devices has caused extensive
research in this area
•This research has produced solid-state devices with higher and
higher frequency ranges.
•The new solid state microwave devices are predominantly
active, two terminal diodes, such as tunnel diodes, varactors,
transferred-electron devices, and avalanche transit-time diodes
TUNNEL DIODE (ESAKI DIODE)
• Tunnel diode was discovered by a Japanese scientist named Esaki
in 1958.
• The tunnel diode is a pn junction with a extremely heavy doping
on the both sides of the junction and an abrupt transition from the
p-side to n-side.
• Due to heavy doping .
• Ahe width of the depletion region becomes very thin and an
overlap occurs between the conduction band level on the n-side
and the valance band level on the p-side.
• The tunnel diode are heavily doped pn junction that have a
negative resistance over a portion of its VI characteristics as shown
in Fig
• At this point dI/dV is zero.
• It changes from negative to positive again. Between the points, the
device exhibits negative resistance.
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VI characteristics and symbol of tunnel diode

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 Microwave Solid State Devices

• Tunnel diode is a pn junction with extremely heavy doping on both

side.
• Tunnel diodes are useful to many circuit applications in microwave
amplification and oscillation because of low cost, light weight, high
speed, low noise and high peak to valley current ratio.
• Tunnel diode exhibits the negative resistance.
• Because of thin junction and short transit time, tunnel diode is also
useful for fast switching.
• Tunnelling phenomenon is known as quantum mechanical
tunnelling.
• Tunnelling phenomenon is a majority carrier effect.
• Because of heavy doping, depletion region becomes very narrow.

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Operation of Tunnel Diode (Quantum Mechanical
Tunnelling)
⦿ The tunnelling phenomenon in tunnel diode is known a
quantum mechanical tunnelling.
⦿ As we know that tunnel diode is a negative resistance pn
junction diode. This negative resistance is created by the tunnel
effect of electron in the pn junction. The tunnel effect is a
majority carrier effect.
⦿ The doping of both the p and n regions of the tunnel diode is
very high,due to this the depletion-barrier at the junction is very
thin (on the order of 100 Å).
⦿ To understand the tunnel effect, we analyze the energy band
diagram of tunnel diode.

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Operation of Tunnel Diode (Quantum Mechanical
Tunnelling)

⦿ Under Unbiased Condition (V = 0)

⦿ The equilibrium energy level diagram of tunnel diode with no
bias applied. Due to the heavy doping, the valance band of the
p-side overlaps the conduction band of the n-side.
⦿ Under unbiased condition the upper level of the electron energy
of both the p-side and n-side are line up at the same fermi level .
⦿ Thus net tunnelling on the thin barrier is zero.
⦿ The Fermi level exist in the valance band in p-side and in
conduction band in the n-side.

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Operation of Tunnel Diode (Quantum Mechanical
Tunnelling)

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2. When 0 < V < Vp

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3. When V  Vp

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4. When Vp < V < Vv

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5. When V > Vv

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VI characteristic of tunnel diode

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Equivalent Circuit of Tunnel Diode

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 Advantages of Tunnel Diode

Several advantages of tunnel diodes are:

1. Tunnel diodes have less weight, high speed, low noise and low
cost.
2. Require very simple DC power supply.
3. Low-noise figure less than (5 dB at 10 GHz) due to low current

levels.
4. Broadband operation is possible.
5. Immune to the natural radiation in the solar system and suitable

for space communication.

6. Wide range of tuning either mechanical or electrical is possible.
7. For low power applications, tunnel diode replace the reflex
klystron.

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 Disadvantages of Tunnel Diode

The tunnel diode is rarely used these days and this results from its
disadvantages:
1. Tunnel diode have low tunnelling current and this means that
they are low power device.
2. When tunnel diodes are used in oscillators as further
amplification is needed and this can only be undertaken by
devices that have a higher power capability, i.e., not tunnel
diodes.
3. There are problems with the reproductivity of the tunnel diodes
resulting in low yields and therefore higher production cost.

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Comparison between Tunnel Diode and Normal p-n
Junction

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 TRANSFERRED ELECTRON DEVICES.
⦿ Transferred electron devices (TED’s) are bulk semiconductor
devices having no junction.
⦿ TED’s are fabricated from compound semiconductor such as
GaAs (gallium arsenide),
⦿ TED’s operate with hot electrons whose energy is very much
greater than the thermal energy.
⦿ the current in the specimen become a fluctuating function of
time.
⦿ Then negative resistance will manifest itself under certain
conditions. Oscillations will occur if the GaAs specimen is
connected to a suitable tuned circuit.
⦿ It is seen that the voltage across the GaAs is very high and
electron velocity is also high,

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 TWO VALLEY THEORY (RWH THEORY)

the two-valley model, however, there are two regions in the

conduction band in which charge carriers (electrons) can exist.
These regions are called valleys and are designated the upper
valley and lower valley. According to the RWH theory, electrons in
the lower valley have low effective mass (0.068) and consequently
a high mobility (8000 cm2/V-s). In the upper valley, which is
separated from lower valley by potential of 0.36 eV, electrons have
a much higher effective mass (1.2) and lower mobility (180 cm2/V-
s) than in the lower valley.
Basic mechanism involved in the operation of bulk n-type GaAs
devices is the transfer of electrons from lower conduction valley to
the upper conduction valley. Electron density thus in lower valley
and upper valley remain the same under equilibrium conduction.

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Two valley model.

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 Two valley model.

When E < El

When the applied electric field is lower than the electric field of the
lower valley (E < El), then electrons will occupy states in the lower
valley Thus the material is in the highest average velocity state
(electron in lower valley has high mobility) and drift velocity increases
linearly with increasing potential. Thus increasing the current density J
and hence positive differential resistance (ohmic region).
RWH theory is based on population inversion principle.
When El < E < Eu
As the applied field is increased (2–4 kV/cm) higher than that of the
lower valley and lower than that of the upper valley (El < E < Eu),
electrons will gain energy from it and move upward to upper valley As
the electrons transfer to the upper valley, their mobility decreases and
the effective mass is increased thus decreasing the current density J
and hence negative differential resistivity.
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Transfer of electron densities.

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Transfer of electron densities

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Characteristics of Gunn Diode

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Construction of Gunn Diode

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Equivalent Circuit of Gunn Diode

Domain Mode:

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 Gunn Oscillator Mode

Gunn considered several circuit configurations

for describing the behaviour of oscillations
in GaAs devices.
When the circuit is mainly resistive or the
voltage across the diode is constant,
This mode is not usually used in microwave
oscillations. For this mode, fL = 107 cm/s
and n 0L = 1012/cm2. Negative conductivity
devices are usually operated in resonant circuits, such as high Q
resonant microwave cavities.
When the diode is in a resonant circuit, the frequency can be
tuned to a range of about an octave without loss of the efficiency.

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Gunn domain modes.

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 Gunn Diode Oscillator

A Gunn diode oscillator can be designed by mounting the diode

inside a waveguide cavity formed by a short-circuit termination at
one end and by an iris at other end diode is mounted at the centre
perpendicular to the broad wall where the electric field
component is maximum under the dominant TE 10 mode. The
intrinsic frequency f0 of the oscillation depends on the electron
drift velocity vd due to high field domain through the effective
length L

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 Disadvantages of Gunn Diode

Gunn diode is very much temperature dependent i.e., a

frequency shift of 0.5 to 3 MHz per °C.
By proper design this frequency shift can be reduced to 50 kHz
for a range of - 40°C to 70°C.
Other disadvantages of Gunn diode is, the power output of the
Gunn diode is limited by difficulty of heat dissipation from the
small chip.
Gunn diode is very much temperature dependent.

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 Applications of Gunn Diode

Gunn diode can be used as an amplifier and as an oscillator. The

applications of Gunn diode are
1. In broadband linear amplifier.
2. In radar transmitters.
3. Used in transponders for air traffic control.
4. In fast combinational and sequential logic circuit.
5. In low and medium power oscillators in microwave receivers.

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 Comparison Between Microwave Transistors and
TED’s
Microwave transistors
[Link] with junction or gates.
[Link] from elemental semiconductors such as Si or Ge.
[Link] with warm electrons whose energy is not much greater
than their thermal energy (0.026 eV at room temperature).

TED’s
Operate with bulk devices having no junctions and gates.
Fabricated from compound GaAs, CdTe or InP.
Operate with hot electrons whose energy is very much greater
than the thermal energy

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 AVALANCHE TRANSIT TIME DEVICES

In 1958, Read at Bell Telephone Laboratories proposed that the

delay between voltage and current in an avalanche, together with
transit time through the material, could make a microwave diode
exhibit negative resistance such devices are called Avalanche
transit time devices.
The prominent members of this family include the IMPATT and
TRAPATT diode.
[Link] (Impact Ionization Avalanche Transit Time) diode as the
name suggests, utilizes impact ionization for carrier generation.
[Link] (Trapped Plasma Avalanche Triggered Transit Time)
diode is derived from the IMPATT with some modifications in the
doping profiles so as to achieve higher pulsed microwave powers
at better efficiency values.

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 IMPATT DIODE

The IMPATT diode or IMPact Avalanche Transit time diode is an

RF semiconductor device that is used for generating microwave
radio frequency signal, with the ability to operate at frequencies
between about 3 to 100 GHz or more, one of the main
disvantages is the relatively high power capability of the IMPATT
diode.
IMPATT Structures
There is a variety of structures that are used for the IMPATT diode
like p+nin+ or n+pip+ , p+nn+, and p+in+ diode, all are variations
of a basic pn junction
IMPATT diode is semiconductor device which generate microwave
signal from 3 to 100 GHz.
In IMPATT diode, negative resistance effect phenomenon is taken
intoaccount

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IMPATT DIODE

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 Operation of IMPATT

A cross-section of p+n n+ IMPATT diode structure is shown in Fig.

Note that it is a diode,the junction being between p+ and then
n layer.
An extremely high voltage gradient is applied in reverse bias to
the IMPATT diode, of the order of 400 kV/cm, eventually
resulting in very high current.

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 Operation of IMPATT

Such a high potential gradient, back-biasing the diode, causes a

flow of minority carriers across the junction. If it is now assumed
that oscillations exist.
Now we may consider the effect of a positive swing of the RF
voltage superimposed on top of the high DC voltage

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 Equivalent Circuit of IMPATT
A simplified equivalent circuit for IMPATT diode chip is shown in
Fig.

Typically negative resistance varies between -0.7 Ω and -2 Ω, and

capacitance ranges from 0.2 to 0.6 pF.
where
Rd = Diode negative resistance consisting of the series lead resistance
Rs and the negative resistance - Rj due to impact avalanche process.
Cj= Junction capacitance.
Lp= Package lead inductance.
Cp= Package lead capacitance.
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 Advantages of IMPATT Diode

 IMPATT diodes are at present the most powerful solid-state

microwave power sources. Some of the major advantages of
IMPATT diode are:
1. Higher operating range are obtain (up to 100 GHz).
2. Above about 20 GHz, the IMPATT diode produces a higher CW
power output per unit than any other semiconductor device.

Higher operating range (up to 100 GHz) can be obtained from

IMPATT diode.

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 Disadvantage of IMPATT Diode

 The major disadvantages of IMPATT diode are:

[Link] DC power is drawn due to induced electron current in
the external circuit, IMPATT diode has low efficiency (RF power
output/DC input power).
[Link] to be noisy due primarily to the avalanche process and to
the high level of operating current. A typical noise figure is 30 dB
which is worse than that of Gunn diode.
3. Tuning is difficult as compare to Gunn diode.
4. To run an IMPATT diode, a relatively high voltage is required.

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 Applications of IMPATT Diode

IMPATT diodes are used as microwave oscillators such as:

[Link] in final power stage of solid state microwave transmitter
for communication purpose.
2. Used in transmitter of TV system.
3. Used in FDM/TDM system.
[Link] in microwave source in laboratory for measurement
purpose.
Photograph of a IMPATT diode is shown in Fig.

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Comparison between Gunn diode and Impatt
diode

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 TRAPATT DIODE

The TRAPATT (Trapped Plasma Avalanche Triggered Transit)

diodes are manufactured from Si or GaAs, and have p+nn+ (or
n+pp+) configuration

TRAPATT diode is derived from IMPATT diode.

In TRAPATT diodes the doping level between the junction and
anode changes gradually.

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 Operation

A TRAPATT in operation is placed in a high resonant cavity and

black biased to avalanche threshold. When the RF oscillations
begin,
they build up extremely rapidly due to the resonant structure thus
taking the voltage across the diode to a value much above the
avalanche threshold

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 Operation

The avalanche zone velocity vz is given by

where,
J is current density
q is the charge of electron
NA is doping concentration.
Thus the avalanche zone or avalanche shock front will quickly
sweep across most of the diode, the electrons and holes will drift at
velocities determined by the low-field mobilities, and the transit
time of the carriers is given by

where,
vs = Saturated carrier drift velocity
L = Length of the specimen.

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 Advantages& Disadvantages of TRAPATT
Diode
The major advantages of TRAPATT are:
1. Low power dissipation
2. High efficiency (up to 60%)
[Link] is a pulse device capable of operating at much larger
pulse powers.

Disadvantages of TRAPATT Diode

The major disadvantages of TRAPATT are:
1. High noise figure (60 dB) limits its use as an amplifier.
[Link] generates strong harmonics due to the short duration current
pulse.
3. Operating frequency is limited below 10 GHz.

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Comparison Between the TRAPATT Diode and
IMPATT Diode

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 BARITT DIODES

Barrier injected transit time diodes

 Long drift regions
The carriers traversing the drift regions are generated by minority
carrier injection from forward biased junctions instead of being
extracted from the plasma of an avalanche region. P-n-
p, p-n-v-p, p-n-metal and metal-n-metal
For a p-n-v-p BARITT diode the forward biased p-n junction emits
holes into the v region. These holes drift with saturation velocity
through the v region and are collected at the p contact.
 The diode exhibits a negative resistance for transit angles
between π and 2 π.

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 CHARACTERISTICS

Much less noisy than IMPATT diodes. Noise figures are as low as
15 dB with Si BARITT amplifiers.
Narrow Bandwidth and power outputs limited to a few mill
watts.
PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION
A crystal n-type Si wafer with 11 Ω-cm resistivity and 4 x 1014
per cubic cm doping is made of a10-um thin slice.
The wafer is sandwiched between two PtSi Scotty barrier
contacts of about 0.1 um thickness.

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BARITT diode construction and operation

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BARITT diode current & voltage waveforms

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 Introduction of PIN DIODE

•Definition: The diode in which the intrinsic layer of high

resistivity is sandwiched between the P and N-region
of semiconductor material such type of diode is known as the
PIN diode.
•A refinement of the ordinary PN diode
•Works as a variable resistor at microwave frequencies
•PIN diode includes a layer of intrinsic material between the P
and N layers
•As a result of the intrinsic layer, PIN diodes have a high
breakdown voltage and they also exhibit a low level of junction
capacitance

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PIN Diode

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 PIN DIODE

A PIN diode consists of a heavily doped p-type semiconductor

material (p+) and a heavily doped n-type semiconductor material
(n+) separated by a layer of extremely high resistivity intrinsic
semiconductor material (i layer).

i) π-type
(ii) v-type.
In π-type PIN diode, heavily doped p and n regions separated by an
unusually lightly doped p-type intrinsic layer and in v-type,

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 Doping profile for PIN diode

PIN diode has heavily doped p and n region separated by a

layer of high resistivity intrinsic material.
 PIN diode is used as a microwave switch.

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 Operation

Zero Bias
At zero bias, two space charge region are formed in the p and n-
layers adjacent to the intrinsic layer because of the diffusion of
holes and electrons across the junctions.
The thickness of space charge regions is inversely proportional
to the impurities, This offers a high resistance.
Reverse Bias
When reverse bias is applied, the space charge region in the p
and n-layers become wider.
A uniform electric field exists in the intrinsic region, dropping
linearly to zero through the depletion regions in n and p-layers.
The space charge regions offers a very high resistance in reverse
bias.

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Impurity concentration space charge density and
electric field in PIN diode.

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Varactor Diode

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 Varactor Diode

•Variable reactor
•Also referred as “Vari cap (Variable Capacitor)diode”
•Referring to voltage-variable capacitance of reverse biased pn
junction
•Designed to exploit the voltage-variable properties of the
junction capacitance
•Junction capacitance depends on the applied voltage and the
design of the junction
•Junction with fixed reverse bias may be used as a capacitance of
fixed value

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What is the difference between ordinary diodes and
Varicap diodes?

•Although ordinary PN junction diodes exhibit the

variable capacitance effect and these diodes can be
used for this applications, special diodes optimized to
give the required changes in capacitance.
•Varactor diodes or varicapdiodes normally enable much
higher ranges of capacitance change to be gained as a
result of the way in which they are manufactured.

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 Varactor Diode - Applications

•Uses in many applications where electronically controlled

tuning of resonant circuits is required, for items such as
oscillators and filters, varactor diodes are an essential
component within the portfolio of the electronics design
engineer
•Tuning stage of radio receiver to replace bulky variable
plate capacitor
•Microwave frequency multiplication
•Active filters
•Voltage Controlled Oscillators
•RF Filters

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 Varactor Diodes used in VCOs

•Varactor diode is a key component within a VCO

•Oscillator within a phase locked loop
•VCOs are used in almost all radio, cellular and wireless receivers.
Varactor Diode used in RF Filters
•Used to tune filters
•Tracking filters may be needed in receiver front end circuits
where they enable the filters to track the incoming received
signal frequency
•Again this can be done using a control voltage

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 Varactor Diode - Operation

•The basis of operation of the varactor diode is quite simple.

The diode is operated under reverse bias conditions and this
gives rise to three regions.
•P region, N region, Depletion region
•P and N regions are the regions where current can be
conducted
•Depletion region is the region where no current carriers are
available
•P and N behave as conducting plates of a capacitor and
Depletion region acts as an Insulator (dielectric in a
capacitor)

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Varactor Diode - Operation

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Varactor Diode – Symbol

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