High-Responsivity, Low-Leakage Current, Ultra-Fast Terahertz Detectors Based on a GaN High-Electron-Mobility Transistor with Integrated Bowtie Antennas

Zhen Huang; Wei Yan; Zhaofeng Li; Hui Dong; Fuhua Yang; Xiaodong Wang

doi:10.3390/s22030933

High-Responsivity, Low-Leakage Current, Ultra-Fast Terahertz Detectors Based on a GaN High-Electron-Mobility Transistor with Integrated Bowtie Antennas

Sensors (Basel). 2022 Jan 25;22(3):933. doi: 10.3390/s22030933.

Authors

Zhen Huang^{1

2

3}, Wei Yan¹, Zhaofeng Li^{1

2

4}, Hui Dong^{1

5}, Fuhua Yang^{2

4

6}, Xiaodong Wang^{1

2

4

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Engineering Research Center for Semiconductor Integrated Technology, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083, China.
² Center of Materials Science and Opto-Electronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ College of Materials Science and Opto-Electronics Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁴ School of Microelectronics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁵ Department of Electronic Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory for Superlattices and Microstructures, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083, China.
⁷ Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Science, Beijing 100193, China.
⁸ Beijing Engineering Research Center of Semiconductor Micro-Nano Integrated Technology, Beijing 100083, China.

Abstract

In this study, we fabricated three kinds of terahertz detectors with different leakage currents to analyze the plateau-like effect. The results indicate that the platform becomes increasingly apparent with the decrease in the leakage current. The fabricated device with the lowest leakage current shows a responsivity of 4.9 kV/W and noise equivalent power (NEP) of 72 pW/Hz. Further, it can be used for broadband detection between 215 GHz and 232 GHz with a voltage responsivity of more than 3.4 kV/W, and the response time can be up to 8 ns. Overall, the proposed device exhibits high sensitivity, large modulation frequency, and fast response, which indicates its excellent potential for detection and imaging applications in the THz range, including the detection of the 220 GHz atmospheric window.

Keywords: broadband detection; leakage currents; plateau-like effect; responsivity; terahertz detector.

Abstract

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