Abstract
The we describe the interaction of picosecond light hight pulses with GaAs/AlAs resonant tunneling structures (RTS's). We show that a band-gap light pulse incident on an appropriately biased device can trigger a switch from one of its stable states to the other or can induce oscillations. The phenomenology of this behavior is summarized in Fig, 1, which shows the time-averaged current- voltage characteristic of a RTS under illumination and in the dark, together with examples of load lines. Consider the device biased on load line A in the initial configuration marked. The device is stable in the dark but is no longer stable under illumination; hence, the device will switch "up" (to higher voltage). Conversely, a diode biased with load line B will switch "down." For both of the.se situations, the final state is stable in the presence or absence of illumination, so no further switching occurs. Oscillations will result if the diode is unstable under illumination at both operating points. Such behavior occurs for load lines such as C.
© 1991 Optical Society of America
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