Forward bias current‐voltage characteristics for a heterojunction in which tunnelling dominates

The forward characteristics of a variety of heterojunction pairs have been observed to fit an empirical expression relating current, voltage, and temperature. This communication demonstrates that, given one basic assumption, the WKB approximation to tunnelling probability yields an analytic expression involving these three variables, which is found to be in qualitative agreement with experiment. Numerical results have been tested where possible and a resultant quantitative agreement is noted.