Appeal No. 95-3055
Application No. 08/111,765
the dopant atoms making it possible to attain useful doping
levels in materials heretofore unable to attain such levels.
Independent claim 11 is reproduced as follows:
11. An article that comprises a multilayer semiconductor
structure comprising, in sequence, a first layer of thickness t1
of a first semiconductor material, a second layer of thickness t2
of a second semiconductor material, and a third layer of the
first semiconductor material, with the first and third layers
being essentially undoped, and the second layer comprising dopant
atoms that provide charge carriers to said first and third
layers, with the first semiconductor material differing in
chemical composition from the second semiconductor material;
associated with the first semiconductor material being a
first and a second band edge energy and an activation energy EA1
of said dopant atoms;
associated with said second semiconductor material being a
third and a fourth band edge energy, with said first, second,
third and fourth band edge energies being such that there exists
a band edge offset in at least one of the conduction or valence
band of the semiconductor body; and associated with each dopant
atom in the second layer being a wave function and a Bohr radius
rB;
CHARACTERIZED IN THAT
(a) t2 is at most 2rB, and the dopant atoms are located
such that the wave function of any given dopant atom extends
into at least one of said first and third layers, such that
said charge carriers experience Coulomb attraction to said
dopant atoms, and associated with said charge carriers is an
effective activation energy EAeff; and
(b) t1, t2, and the first and second semiconductor
materials are selected such that EAeff is less than EA1, and
t1 is much greater than t2 such that the multilayer
semiconductor structure behaves substantially as if the
dopant atoms were present in uniform first semiconductor
material.
The examiner relies on no references.
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