Detectors of microwave and terahertz radiation on the basis of semiconductor nanostructures

Investigation of detection properties of planar microwave diodes based on A3B5 semiconductor compounds in millimeter–wavelength range

“…Voltage sensitivity of the pseudomorphic selectively-doped AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs structures containing a single In 0.15 Ga 0.85 As layer was 0.6 V/W at room temperature, while at liquid nitrogen temperature, the value reached 38 V/W. As reported by (Ašmontas et al, 2007), the voltage sensitivity of the planar diode does not change from 10 GHz to 120 GHz, while at higher frequencies (>120 GHz), the sensitivity decreases due to the frequency dependence of the electron capture cross-section in GaAs and InAs.…”

“…Generally, these types of diodes are called thermoelectric. The operation of a thermoelectric diode is based on the occurrence of non-uniform free carrier heating in the electric field of the point contact (Sužiedėlis, Ašmontas, Kazlauskaitė & Gradauskas, 2009).…”

“…It was discovered by measuring IV characteristics in n-Ge (Ašmontas, Požela & Repšas, 1975) and n-Si (Ašmontas, 1975) semiconductors at temperatures of 300 K and 77 K. Although these bigradient diodes had high electrical resistance, so in planar thermoelectric diodes the more necked side was doped that resulted in lower electrical resistance and faster operation speed (Ašmontas et al, 2000). In this case, the detected voltage consists of both the bigradient and hot carrier thermoelectric forces (Ašmontas, Gradauskas, Kožič, Shtrikmann & Sužiedėlis, 2005;Ašmontas et al, 2009). Non-uniform heating in the planar thermoelectric diode was achieved, namely, using an asymmetrically necked thin semiconductor film containing the n-n + -GaAs junction and the n-Si doped monocrystal structure (Ašmontas & Sužiedėlis, 1994;Ašmontas et al, 2005).…”

“…Planar diodes based on AlGaAs/GaAs structures with a homogeneously doped barrier, pseudomorphic AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs structures with 10 periods of undoped GaAs/AlGaAs layers, and diodes based on AlGaAs/GaAs structures with δ-doped and homogeneously doped barrier were investigated in (Ašmontas et al, 2007(Ašmontas et al, , 2009. Linear detected voltage dependence on MW power up to 10 mW was observed for all investigated diodes at room and liquid nitrogen temperatures.…”

“…Linear detected voltage dependence on MW power up to 10 mW was observed for all investigated diodes at room and liquid nitrogen temperatures. The non-monotonic character of the VP characteristics observed at higher MW powers was associated with the origin of negative differential resistance in the n-GaAs layer due to the Gunn Effect (Ašmontas et al, 1998(Ašmontas et al, , 2009. The diode having a homogeneously doped barrier reached a voltage sensitivity of 0.3 V/W at room temperature and 20 V/W at liquid nitrogen temperature in the frequency range from 26 GHz to 120 GHz.…”