Singularity-enhanced terahertz detection in high-mobility field-effect transistors

Abstract

Detectors of high-frequency radiation based on high-electron-mobility transistors benefit from low noise, room-temperature operation, and the possibility to perform radiation spectroscopy using gate-tunable plasmon resonance. Despite successful proof-of-concept demonstrations, the responsivity of transistor-based detectors of THz radiation, at present, remains fairly poor. To resolve this problem, we propose a class of devices supporting singular plasmon modes, i.e. modes with strong electric fields near keen electrodes. A large plasmon-enhanced electric field results in amplified non-linearities, and thus efficient ac-to-dc conversion. We analyze sub-terahertz detectors based on a two-dimensional electron system (2DES) in the Corbino geometry as a prototypical and exactly solvable model and show that the responsivity scales as $1/r_0^2$ with the radius of the inner contact $r_0$. This enables responsivities exceeding 10 kV/W at sub-THz frequencies for nanometer-scale contacts readily accessible by modern nanofabrication techniques.

6 paged, 5 figures

References in corpus (17)

• Graphene field effect transistors as room-temperature Terahertz detectors
• Hydrodynamics of electrons in graphene
• Ultra-confined acoustic THz graphene plasmons revealed by photocurrent nanoscopy
• Resonant Terahertz Detection Using Graphene Plasmons
• Visualizing Poiseuille flow of hydrodynamic electrons
• Fast and Sensitive Terahertz Detection Using an Antenna-Integrated Graphene pn Junction
• Field Effect Transistors for Terahertz Detection: Physics and First Imaging Applications
• Theory of the plasma-wave photoresponse of a gated graphene sheet
• Dual Origin of Room Temperature Sub-Terahertz Photoresponse in Graphene Field Effect Transistors
• Transmission Line Theory of Collective Plasma Excitations in Periodic Two-Dimensional Electron Systems: Finite Plasmonic Crystals and Tamm States
• Photocurrent-based detection of Terahertz radiation in graphene
• Drastic Reduction of Plasmon Damping in Two-Dimensional Electron Disks
• Pseudo-Euler equations from nonlinear optics: plasmon-assisted photodetection beyond hydrodynamics
• Asymmetry-driven plasmon instabilities in confined hydrodynamic electron flows
• Perturbation theory for two-dimensional hydrodynamic plasmons
• Exact solution for driven oscillations in plasmonic field-effect transistors
• Dyakonov-Shur instability across the ballistic-to-hydrodynamic crossover

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Tunnel field-effect transistors for sensitive terahertz detection
• Terahertz Radiation from the Dyakonov-Shur Instability of Hydrodynamic Electrons in a Corbino Geometry
• Dipole excitation of collective modes in viscous two-dimensional electron systems
• Eccentric Corbino FET in magnetic field: a highly tunable photodetector