The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 29, 2001
Filed:
Jan. 14, 1999
James F. Harvey, Apex, NC (US);
Robert A. Lux, Toms River, NJ (US);
Raphael Tsu, Charlotte, NC (US);
The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army, Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
A solid state electronic device exhibiting negative differential resistance is fabricated by depositing a thin layer of amorphous silicon on a single crystal substrate, doped N,. The amorphous silicon is simultaneously crystallized and oxidized in a dry N,and O,mixture. The result is a layer of amorphous SiO,surrounding microclusters of crystalline silicon. A layer of polycrystalline silicon is deposited to a thickness of approximately 0.5 micron. Ohmic metal contacts are made to the top and bottom. These active layers are isolated by insulating SiO,. A bias voltage applied between the metal contacts results in negative differential resistance due to tunneling through resonant energy levels in microclusters.