Spectral Narrowing Effect of a Novel Super-Grating Dual-Gate Structure for Plasmon-Resonant Terahertz Emitter

We have proposed a terahertz (THz) emitter utilizing two-dimensional plasmons (2DPs) in a super-grating dual-gate (SGG) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT). The plasmon under each grating gate has a unique feature that its resonant frequency is determined by the plasma-wave velocity over the gate length. Since the drain bias voltage causes a linear potential slope from the source to drain area, the sheet electron densities in periodically distributed 2DP cavities are dispersed. As a result, all the resonant frequencies are dispersed and undesirable spectral broadening occurs. A SGG structure can compensate for the sheet electron density distribution by modulating the grating dimension. The finite difference time domain simulation confirms its spectral narrowing effect. Within a wide detuning range for the gate and drain bias voltages giving a frequency shifting of ±0.5THz from an optimum condition, the SGG structure can preserve the spectral narrowing effect.