Extraordinary electroconductance in metal-semiconductor hybrid structures.

We report the phenomenon of extraordinary electroconductance in microscopic metal-semiconductor hybrid structures fabricated from GaAs epitaxial layer and a Ti thin film shunt. Four-lead Van der Pauw structures show a gain of 5.2% in electroconductance under +2.5 kVcm with zero shunt bias. The increase in the sample conductance results from the thermionic field emission of electrons and the geometrical amplification. A model provides good agreement with the experimental data and clearly demonstrates the geometry dependence of the field effect in extraordinary electroconductance (EEC). The differences between EEC devices and field effect transistors, such as junction field effect transistor (FET) and Schottky barrier gate FET, are discussed.