The large electronic polarization in III-V nitrides allow for novel physics not possible in other semiconductor families. In this work, interband Zener tunneling in wide-bandgap GaN heterojunctions is demonstrated by using polarization-induced electric fields. The resulting tunnel diodes are more conductive under reverse bias, which has applications for zero-bias rectification and mm-wave imaging. Since interband tunneling is traditionally prohibitive in wide-bandgap semiconductors, these polarization-induced structures and their variants can enable a number of devices such as multijunction solar cells that can operate under elevated temperatures and high fields.
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