Gallium Nitride Ballistic Electron Acceleration Negative-Differential- Conductivity Diodes for Terahertz Applications

Electronic generation of terahertz (THz) signals using gallium nitride (GaN) is predicted to exhibit high efficiency. Theory by Ridley et al. [1] shows that electrons in an ultra thin (20-120 nm) epilayer of intrinsic GaN can be ballistically accelerated to negative mass states (under the influence of an applied bias voltage of 2.7 volts) with hot enough injection. If a majority of the electrons can be made to populate these states, negativedifferential-conductivity (NDC) will be observed at the device terminals.