02361nas a2200133   4500008004100000022001300041245012200054210006900176260001600245300001400261490000700275520171800282856022702000       1974                        eng d  a0038110100aMinority carrier MIS tunnel diodes and their application to electron- and photo-voltaic energy conversion—I. Theory0 aMinority carrier MIS tunnel diodes and their application to elec  cJan-06-1974  a551 - 5610 v173 aIf the insulating layer in a metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) diode is very thin (&lt;60 Å for AlSiO2Si), measureable tunnel current can flow between the metal and the semiconductor. If the insulating layer is even thinner (&lt;30 Å), tunnel currents are so large that they can significantly disturb the semiconductor from thermal equilibrium. Under such conditions, MIS diodes exhibit properties determined by which of the following tunneling processes is dominant; tunneling between the metal and the majority carrier energy band in the semiconductor, between the metal and the minority carrier energy band, or between the metal abd surface state levels. In the present paper, minority carrier MIS tunnel diodes are analysed using a very general formulation of the tunneling processes through the insulator, transport properties in the semiconductor, and surface state effects. Starting from solutions for diodes with relatively thick insulating layers where the semiconductor is essentially in thermal equilibrium, solutions are obtained for progressively thinner insulating layers until non-equilibrium effects in the semiconductor are observed. It is shown that such minority carrier MIS tunnel diodes with very thin insulating layers possess properties similar to p-n junction diodes including exponential current-voltage characteristics which approach the “ideal diode” law of p-n junction theory. The theory adequately describes the observed properties of experimental devices reported in a companion paper. The diodes have application as injecting contacts, as photodiodes or elements of photodiode arrays, and as energy conversion devices employing the electron- or photo-voltaic effects.  uhttp://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/0038110174901725http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:0038110174901725?httpAccept=text/xmlhttp://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:0038110174901725?httpAccept=text/plain