Boundary instability of a two-dimensional plasma

Abstract

It was shown previously that the current-carrying state of a Field Effect Transistor with asymmetric source and drain boundary conditions may become unstable against spontaneous generation of plasma waves [1]. By extending the analysis to the two-dimensional case we find that the dominant instability modes correspond to waves propagating in the direction perpendicular to the current and localized near the boundaries. This new type of instability should result in plasma turbulency with a broad frequency spectrum. More generally, it is shown that a similar instability might exist, when a strong enough current goes through a single boundary between the gated and ungated regions.

5 pages, 4 figures

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Field Effect Transistors for Terahertz Detection: Physics and First Imaging Applications
• Amplified-reflection plasmon instabilities in grating-gate plasmonic crystals
• Generation and detection of Terahertz radiation by Field Effect Transistors
• Perturbation theory for two-dimensional hydrodynamic plasmons
• Asymmetry-driven plasmon instabilities in confined hydrodynamic electron flows
• Thresholdless excitation of edge plasmons by transverse current
• Plasmons in two-dimensional electron systems with infinite and semi-infinite metal gratings
• Tunable THz-whistle built on two-dimensional Helmholtz resonator
• Geometric effects in the Dyakonov-Shur theory of Teraherz photodetection