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........ published in NEWSLETTER # 49

NEGATIVE DIFFERENTIAL RESISTANCE AND INSTABILITIES IN 2_D SEMICONDUCTORS
by Dr. A.J. Vickers, University of Essex, Colchester (U.K.)

This volume (NATO ASI SERIES B307) comprises 30 papers which were presented at a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held at Il Ciocco, Lucca (Tuscany/Italy). The aim of the workshop was to review the current state of research into Negative Differential Resistance (NDR) and instabilities in 2D systems by bringing together the main workers in the field. The paper reflect the wealth of work in this area of research with contributions ranging from those concerned with the fundamental theory of NDR and instabilities to those concerned with the device implications. The volume opens as did the workshop with an historical review by Professor B.K.Ridley. In this introduction the history of NDR is traced from its origins in the 1930's up to the present day with the new mechanisms associated with 2D systems. This introduction concludes with a set of questions relating to the unknowns of NDR in 2D systems.

The subsequent papers in this volume deal with theoretical models and experimental results on a wide range of structures and devices. NDR associated with parallel and perpendicular transport in 2D systems is considered. There are a number of papers concerned with the visualisation of high field regions and/or current filaments using SEM and electro_optic voltage probing. There are also a series of papers concerned with the observation of light emission associated with high field regions and hot electrons.

As hot electron effects are critically dependent on the scattering mechanisms and how they depend on the energy of the carriers, a number of papers were presented which were concerned with the calculation of phonon, plasmon, and hybrid modes in 2D systems.
Reference books: B180, B307, E175

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