Terahertz Oscillation of Resonant Tunneling Diode and Modulation of Its Output Power with Laser Irradiation

Abstract

Room temperature terahertz oscillation is reported for resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) integrated with micro-slot antennas. With an RTD structure for the short transit time of electrons across the collector depletion region, we obtained a fundamental oscillation of up to 1.08 THz. Based on this result, we discuss the structures for further increase in oscillation frequency and demonstrate the effect of an offset slot antenna for high output power. The radiation pattern of the output power of the RTD oscillator on a hyper hemispherical silicon lens was measured and shown to be relatively narrow (around 20 ° in the full width at the half maximum). We also report a preliminary experiment of output power modulation by irradiation of laser light, which is useful for signal transfer from optical fiber communications to terahertz wireless communications.