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The Gunn diode type. |
In the early sixties, J.B. Gunn working at IBM laboratories discovered
that certain semiconductors materials like the Gallium Arsenide,
electrons can exist in a high-mass low velocity state as well as
their normal low-mass high-velocity state and they can be forced
into the high-mass state by a steady electric field of sufficient
strenght in such away they form domains which cross the field at
a constant rate causing current to flow as a series of pulses.
This principle is known as the "GUNN effect" that is used
to build a diode made of an epitaxial layer of N-type Gallium Arsenide
grown on a Gallium Arsenide substrate.
By applying a small voltage between the Ohmic contacts to the N-Layer
and substrats it produces the electrical field responsible for the
domains. The frequency of the current pulses generated in this way,
depends either on the transit time through the N-layer as well as
its thickness.
If such a kind of diode is mounted in a suitable tuned cavity resonator,
the current pulses produce oscillation due to schock exicitation
and so generating radio frequency power up to 1 W in a frequency
range from 10 to 30 GHz. Fig 258
Gunn diodes are used in low and medium power transmitters, motion
detection systems, local and locking oscillators.
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