中国物理B ›› 2009, Vol. 18 ›› Issue (12): 5451-5456.doi: 10.1088/1674-1056/18/12/053

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A theoretical study of harmonic generation in a short period AlGaN/GaN superlattice induced by a terahertz field

陈军峰, 郝跃   

  1. Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Wide Band-Gap Semiconductor Materials and Devices, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
  • 收稿日期:2009-06-22 修回日期:2009-08-21 出版日期:2009-12-20 发布日期:2009-12-20

A theoretical study of harmonic generation in a short period AlGaN/GaN superlattice induced by a terahertz field

Chen Jun-Feng(陈军峰) and Hao Yue(郝跃)   

  1. Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Wide Band-Gap Semiconductor Materials and Devices, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
  • Received:2009-06-22 Revised:2009-08-21 Online:2009-12-20 Published:2009-12-20

摘要: Based on an improved energy dispersion relation, the terahertz field induced nonlinear transport of miniband electrons in a short period AlGaN/GaN superlattice is theoretically studied in this paper with a semiclassical theory. To a short period superlattice, it is not precise enough to calculate the energy dispersion relation by just using the nearest wells in tight binding method: the next to nearest wells should be considered. The results show that the electron drift velocity is 30% lower under a dc field but 10% higher under an ac field than the traditional simple cosine model obtained from the tight binding method. The influence of the terahertz field strength and frequency on the harmonic amplitude, phase and power efficiency is calculated. The relative power efficiency of the third harmonic reaches the peak value when the dc field strength equals about three times the critical field strength and the ac field strength equals about four times the critical field strength. These results show that the AlGaN/GaN superlattice is a promising candidate to convert radiation of frequency ω to radiation of frequency 3ω or even higher.

Abstract: Based on an improved energy dispersion relation, the terahertz field induced nonlinear transport of miniband electrons in a short period AlGaN/GaN superlattice is theoretically studied in this paper with a semiclassical theory. To a short period superlattice, it is not precise enough to calculate the energy dispersion relation by just using the nearest wells in tight binding method: the next to nearest wells should be considered. The results show that the electron drift velocity is 30% lower under a dc field but 10% higher under an ac field than the traditional simple cosine model obtained from the tight binding method. The influence of the terahertz field strength and frequency on the harmonic amplitude, phase and power efficiency is calculated. The relative power efficiency of the third harmonic reaches the peak value when the dc field strength equals about three times the critical field strength and the ac field strength equals about four times the critical field strength. These results show that the AlGaN/GaN superlattice is a promising candidate to convert radiation of frequency $\omega$  to radiation of frequency 3$\omega$  or even higher.

Key words: terahertz, GaN, superlattice, nonlinear transport

中图分类号:  (Electronic transport in nanoscale materials and structures)

  • 73.63.-b
71.15.Ap (Basis sets (LCAO, plane-wave, APW, etc.) and related methodology (scattering methods, ASA, linearized methods, etc.)) 73.20.At (Surface states, band structure, electron density of states) 73.21.Cd (Superlattices)