GUNN EFFECT

high-frequency oscillation of electrical current flowing through certain semiconducting solids. The effect is used in a solid-state device, the Gunn diode, to produce short radio waves called microwaves. The effect was discovered by J.B. Gunn in the early 1960s. It has been detected only in a few materials. In materials displaying the Gunn effect, such as gallium arsenide or cadmium sulfide, electrons can exist in two states of mobility, or ease of movement. Electrons in the state of higher mobility move through the solid more easily than electrons in the lower mobility state. When no electrical voltage is applied to the material, most of its electrons are in the high mobility state. When an electrical voltage is applied, all its electrons begin to move just as in ordinary conductors. This motion constitutes an electrical current, and in most solids greater voltages cause increased movement of all the electrons and hence greater current flow. In Gunn-effect materials, however, a sufficiently strong electrical voltage may force some of the electrons into the state of lower mobility, causing them to move more slowly and decreasing the electrical conductivity of the material. In electronic circuits incorporating the Gunn diode, this unusual relationship between voltage and current (motion) results in the generation of high-frequency alternating current from a direct-current source.