Electron bistability and switching effects in Mo/p-CdTe/Mo structure

Abstract

It has been experimentally shown that in a simple metal–semiconductor-metal structure with ohmic contacts, a reversible transition from a high-resistance state to a state with high electrical conductivity is possible under the influence of short current pulses of 80-ns duration with a peak voltage of more than 20 V. It was established that after the breakdown under static voltage, the structure irreversibly goes into a state with high electrical conductivity. At the same time, sections with negative differential resistance and negative differential conductivity appear on its low-frequency current–voltage characteristics at voltages less than 1 V. The most probable physical mechanisms that can provide such current–voltage characteristics are considered.