Tunneling through narrow-gap semiconductor Sb2Te3 barrier

Tunnel experiments have been performed on Au/Sb₂Te₃/Al tunnel junctions to study elastic interelectrode tunneling through the small energy gap of a narrow-gap semiconductor. Tunnel conductance exhibited narrow width conductance peak at zero bias voltage. This behaviour is in accordance with the result of the theoretically calculated tunnel conductance, in which the nonparabolic dispersion relation within the energy gap of the narrow-gap semiconductor used as a tunnel barrier in a metal/narrow-gap semiconductor/metal tunnel structure is included. And some interesting structures are also observed in the conductance curves.