Terahertz Plasma Field Effect Transistors

Abstract

The channel of the field effect transistor can operate as a cavity for plasma waves. For the electrons with high enough mobility, the plasma waves can propagate in field effect transistors (FETs) channel leading to resonant Terahertz (THz) emission or detection. In the low mobility case, plasma oscillations are overdamped, but a plasma density perturbation can be induced by incoming THz radiation. This perturbation can lead to efficient broadband THz detection. We present an overview of the main experimental results concerning the plasma oscillations in field effect transistors for the generation and the detection of terahertz radiations.