Coexistence of room-temperature negative differential resistance and unsaturated magnetoresistance effects in germanium-based devices

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/adfdc3

Abstract We demonstrate room-temperature negative differential resistance (NDR) and unsaturated magnetoresistance (MR) effects in germanium-based devices. Our findings indicate that the observed NDR primarily originates from the carrier injection effect induced by local impact ionization in germanium. As the magnetic field increases, the MR values exhibit an unsaturated behavior, increasing quadratically at low fields and transitioning to a linear increase at higher fields, reaching approximately 91% at 1 T. We attribute this large unsaturated MR to carrier inhomogeneity. The equivalent Hall electric field strength was used to characterize the degree of carrier inhomogeneity under magnetic fields: a larger equivalent Hall electric field strength indicates stronger carrier inhomogeneity and consequently a larger corresponding MR. The coexistence of excellent room-temperature NDR and large unsaturated MR in germanium-based devices (achieved by constructing electrodes at two edge positions on the semiconductor surface) enables the development of multifunctional devices.

Keywords: germanium-based devices magnetoresistance negative differential resistance electrical transport

Received: 14 March 2025
Revised: 20 August 2025
Accepted manuscript online: 21 August 2025

PACS:	75.47.-m	(Magnetotransport phenomena; materials for magnetotransport)
	85.30.-z	(Semiconductor devices)
	83.60.Np	(Effects of electric and magnetic fields)

Fund: This work was supported in part by the Youth Program of Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (Grant No. 2024AFB333), Natural Science Foundation of Yichang (Grant No. A24-3-021), the Special Funding for Talents of China Three Gorges University (Grant No. 8230202), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 12274258).

Corresponding Authors: Xiong He, Li-Qing Pan
E-mail: hexiong@ctgu.edu.cn;lpan@ctgu.edu.cn

Cite this article:

Xiong He(何雄), Ling Cai(蔡玲), Li-Zhi Yi(易立志), Guang-Duo Lu(鲁广铎), Li-Qing Pan(潘礼庆), and Zhi-Gang Sun(孙志刚) Coexistence of room-temperature negative differential resistance and unsaturated magnetoresistance effects in germanium-based devices 2026 Chin. Phys. B 35 037502

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Coexistence of room-temperature negative differential resistance and unsaturated magnetoresistance effects in germanium-based devices

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