Terahertz radiation from the Dyakonov-Shur instability of hydrodynamic electrons in Corbino geometry

Abstract

Hydrodynamic electrons flowing through a two-dimensional channel are predicted to undergo a plasma instability above a critical drift velocity. This Dyakonov-Shur (DS) instability terminates as a coherent nonlinear oscillator, which shows promise as a source of radiation that could fill the so-called terahertz gap. In this work, we study radial flow in a Corbino disk, and demonstrate how the DS instability is substantially enhanced in this geometry, both in terms of a lower critical drift velocity and a higher generated power. Interestingly, hydrodynamic electron flows were recently reported in a graphene sample of this geometry, and our results are therefore directly relevant to current efforts to detect this experimentally elusive phenomenon. The analysis is based on a hydrodynamic approach and features both linearized calculations as well as full numerical simulations of the Navier-Stokes equation.