Plasmonic Spectrum and Resonance of Grating-gate

GaN/AlGaN HEMTs
Hongyang Guo Ping Zhang Shengpeng Yang
National Key Laboratory of Science National Key Laboratory of Science National Key Laboratory of Science
and Technology on Vacuum Electronics and Technology on Vacuum Electronics and Technology on Vacuum Electronics
University of Electronic Science and University of Electronic Science and University of Electronic Science and
Technology of China Technology of China Technology of China
Chengdu, China Chengdu, China Chengdu, China
hyguo139@163.com zhangping@uestc.edu.cn syang@uestc.edu.cn

Yuan Zheng Shaomeng Wang Yubin Gong

National Key Laboratory of Science
and Technology on Vacuum Electronics
University of Electronic Science and
Technology of China
Chengdu, China
zyzheng@uestc.edu.cn
National Key Laboratory of Science National Key Laboratory of Science
and Technology on Vacuum Electronics and Technology on Vacuum Electronics
University of Electronic Science and University of Electronic Science and
Technology of China Technology of China
Chengdu, China Chengdu, China
wangsm@uestc.edu.cn ybgong@uestc.edu.cn

Abstract—In this work, the plasmonic spectrum and

2023 24th International Vacuum Electronics Conference (IVEC) | 978-1-6654-7321-7/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/IVEC56627.2023.10157601

resonance of grating-gate GaN/AlGaN high electron mobility

transistors (HEMTs) are studied. The energy bands of the
plasmonic crystal in the HEMT are simulated and compared
with the theoretical formula. The THz transmission and
absorption spectra of the plasmonic crystal under different
temperatures are simulated. The spatial dependences of the
plasma wave in the two-dimensional electron gas at different
resonant modes are analyzed. It is found that the excitation of
plasma oscillation in ungated region could improve the THz
absorption of plasmonic crystal.

Keywords—plasmonic crystal, two-dimensional electron gas,

terahertz wave, plasmonic resonance

I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1 3-D model of the grating-gate GaN/AlGaN HEMT

The plasma oscillation in the two-dimensional electron gas between the gates ( ) are both set to be 1×1013 cm-2. The
(2DEG) in the transistor has been found to produce THz grating period P is 3 μm and the slit width is 1.5 μm. The
radiation [1]. Under the modulation of the periodic gates, the 2DEG momentum relaxation time is 4.3 ps at 77 K and 0.27
plasma wave in the 2DEG shows properties similar to ps at 300 K [4]. When no voltage is applied between the source
photonic crystals such as discrete energy bands, thus, it is and drain, the electron DC velocity is zero and the 2DEG AC
called as plasmonic crystal [2]. Studies found that when the sheet conductivity is
electron’s direct current (DC) velocity in the plasmonic crystal
is non-zero and exceeds specific thresholds, the plasma wave n0 e 2τ
σ= (1)
in the 2DEG becomes unstable and grows with time, which me (1 + jωτ )
can be used to achieve THz radiation and as a potential THz
wave source [2, 3]. On this basis, the plasmonic crystal can be
used as an active radiation surface and be integrated with the where, is the 2DEG sheet concentration, is the2DEG
vacuum electronic devices, promoting the development of on- momentum relaxation time, and is the effective mass of
chip vacuum electronic devices. the electron in the 2DEG.
Theoretically, when the source drain bias is 0, that is, the
II. MODEL AND SIMULATION RESULTS electron’s DC velocity is 0, the dispersion relation of
Firstly, the 3-D model of the grating-gate GaN/AlGaN plasmonic crystal is [2]
HEMT model is established, as shown as Fig. 1. The epitaxial
layers of the HEMT from bottom to up are sapphire substrate, ω Lg ω Ls s g2 + ss2 ω Lg ω Ls
GaN buffer and channel and AlGaN barrier. The 2DEG is cos ( kL ) = cos cos − sin sin (2)
sg ss 2 s g ss sg ss
located between the GaN and AlGaN layers, the grating gates
are located above the AlGaN layer. The two sides of the
grating gates are the source and drain electrodes. Here, k is the Bloch wave vector, ω is the plasma wave
frequency, and is the gate length and slit length,
During simulation, the thicknesses of GaN and AlGaN respectively. and are the phase velocities of plasma
layers are 1 μm and 20 nm, respectively. The 2DEG sheet waves in the gated and ungated regions, respectively. The
concentrations under the gates ( ) and under the slits theoretical dispersion curves of the plasmonic crystal are
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (Grant Nos. 92163204, 61921002 and 62171098).

XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEE

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shown as the solid lines in Fig. 2. Different color curves
represent different plasmonic bands.
The dispersion relation of plasmonic crystal is also
simulated by using COMSOL Multiphysics software. The
Floquet periodic boundary conditions are applied on the two
sides of the one-period plasmonic crystal with the
wavenumber difference of . A parallel-polarized THz pulse
with frequency of 0-5 THz is vertically irradiated from the
HEMT and the frequencies at the peaks in the absorption
spectra are extracted as the plasmonic resonant frequencies. In
this way, the dispersion relationship of the plasmonic crystal
is simulated, which is shown as the scatters in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 Plasmonic energy bands of the GaN/AlGaN plasmonic crystal
(The solid lines and scatters reprensent the theoretical and simulation
resluts, respectively.)
When the Bloch wave vector of the plasmon crystal is
0, the THz transmission and absorption spectra of the HEMT
are obtained and shown as Fig. 3. The black and blue solid
lines are the transmission spectra of the HEMT at 77 K and
300 K. The red and orange solid lines are the absorption
spectra of the HEMT at 77 K and 300 K. It shows that the
resonant peaks are sharper at 77 K. In other words, the two-
dimensional plasmons in the 2DEG is easier to excite at lower
temperatures. In addition, the same model is simulated using
HFSS and the results are shown as the dashed lines in Fig. 3.
It shows that the simulation results of the two softwares are in
with good agreement.
Fig. 3 Transmission and absorption spectrums of grating gate HEMT.
(The black and blue solid lines are the transmission spectra of 77 K and
300 K, respectively. The red and orange solid lines are the absorption
spectra of 77 K and 300 K, respectively. The solid lines are the
COMSOL results and the dashed lines are the HFSS results)
Authorized licensed use limited to: SASTRA. Downloaded on March 20,2024 at 04:24:26 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
As shown as Fig. 3, the first five peaks of the absorption
spectra are 0.68 THz, 1.57 THz, 2.44 THz, 3.2 THz and 3.66
THz, respectively. These frequencies are exactly of the first
five plasmonic resonant modes. The 1-D distributions of the
areal current density Js at the first five resonant modes are
shown in Fig. 4. In this figure, the black rectangular blocks
represent the two gates. In the first four modes, Js almost
varies only below the gates. The two ends of the gates
correspond to the nodes of the plasma wave and the gate
length equals odd multiple of the half wavelength of the
plasma wave. In the ungated region, Js almost does not vary
with the position. Different from the first four modes, the
plasma wave at the fifth mode varies half wavelength in the
ungated region and the amplitude of Js in the ungated region
is even stronger than that in the gated region. The plasmon
excitation in the ungated region could explain the sharper
absorption peak of the fifth mode in Fig. 3.
Fig. 4 Spatial dependences of areal current density Js in 2DEG of the
first five modes
III. CONCLUSIONS
In this work, the dispersion relation of the plasmonic
crystal formed in the GaN/AlGaN grating-gate HEMT is
obtained by simulation. The THz transmission and absorption
spectra of the HEMT at different temperatures have been
obtained and analyzed. By studying the areal current
distribution in 2DEG at the first 5 resonant modes in the
absorption spectrum, we found that the excitation of the
ungated plasmons can lead to the strong THz absorption of the
grating-gate HEMTs.
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