Improving the Radiation Performance of Resonant-Tunneling Diode by Using Planar Metallic Arrays

Resonant-tunneling diodes (RTDs) are promising candidates for terahertz sources but typically exhibit an unexpected large tilt angle in the main lobe of their radiation pattern. In this paper, we present two types of planar metallic arrays, a plasmonic filter and a series-fed patch array, applied to an RTD working at 500 GHz to improve the overall radiation performance. The metallic array is designed through full-wave simulations, and the achieved results for both designs show a large reduction in the main lobe angle. The broadside directivity of the plasmonic filter and the series-fed patch array design reaches 5.4 dBi and 12.5 dBi, respectively.