Resonant tunneling through amorphous silicon–silicon nitride double-barrier structures

The electron tunneling through quantized states in an ultrathin hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) layer sandwiched with stoichiometric silicon nitride (a-${\mathrm{Si}}_3$ ${\mathrm{N}}_4$:H) barriers has been systematically investigated. The I-V characteristics have exhibited the current bumps arising from the resonant tunneling through the double barriers. The effective mass of tunneling electron is obtained to be 0.6${\mathrm{m}}_0$, being consistent with the value determined from the optical band-gap data for a-Si:H/a-${\mathrm{Si}}_3$ ${\mathrm{N}}_4$:H multilayers.