Resonant tunneling of illuminated multi-insulator diodes

The current–voltage (I–V) characteristics of two different Metal–Insulator–Metal (MIM) diodes with three insulator layers were calculated and compared. The effect of illumination, or the photon-assisted tunneling was considered with the Tien–Gordon model. Our calculations indicate that, by carefully designing the insulating layers of the MIM diodes, the resonant tunneling phenomena can be tuned effectively in the diodes with quantum well structures. The results also show that the minimum shift of the illuminated current depends not only on the intensity of the photons incident but also on the diode structures, or the parameters of the insulators and so on.