Demonstration of resonant tunneling effects in metal-double-insulator-metal (MI2M) diodes

Although the effect of resonant tunneling in metal-double-insulator-metal (MI2M) diodes has been predicted for over two decades, no experimental demonstrations have been reported at the low voltages needed for energy harvesting rectenna applications. Using quantum-well engineering, we demonstrate the effects of resonant tunneling in a Ni/NiO/Al2O3/Cr/Au MI2M structures and achieve the usually mutually exclusive desired characteristics of low resistance ( $${R}_{0}^{DC} \sim$$ R 0 D C ~ 13 kΩ for 0.035 μm2) and high responsivity (β0 = 0.5 A W−1) simultaneously. By varying the thickness of insulators to modify the depth and width of the MI2M quantum well, we show that resonant quasi-bound states can be reached at near zero-bias, where diodes self-bias when driven by antennas illuminated at 30 THz. We present an improvement in energy conversion efficiency by more than a factor of 100 over the current state-of-the-art, offering the possibility of engineering efficient energy harvesting rectennas.