Electromagnetic physical modeling of a gallium nitride distributed transferred electron based planar waveguide structure THz oscillator

Abstract

The potential of a planar waveguide structure terahertz oscillator based on a gallium nitride distributed transferred electron device is theoretically investigated. The circuit numerical physical modeling relies on a two-dimensional time-domain electromagnetism/transport simulator. It is based on the coupled solution of the Maxwell and energy-momentum macroscopic transport equations. The study is focused on the analysis, from the space-time electromagnetic and electron transport quantities, of the complex CW operation of an oscillator, designed and DC biased, to optimally operate at one terahertz. The analysis is performed following a full electromagnetic approach in the time and frequency domain, at the local scale, for the description of the physical phenomena, as well as at the functional scale in order to obtain the quantities interesting the oscillator designer and user.