High-electron mobility transistor terahertz wave modulator loaded in waveguide

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11442295-B2
Application number	US-202016858750-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 27, 2020
Priority date	Apr 29, 2019
Publication date	Sep 13, 2022
Grant date	Sep 13, 2022

Abstract

A high-electron mobility transistor (HEMT) array terahertz wave modulator loaded in a waveguide is provided, which belongs to the technical field of electromagnetic functional devices and focuses on fast dynamic functional devices in the terahertz band. The device comprises a waveguide cavity and a modulation chip. The modulation chip comprises a semiconductor material substrate, a heterostructure material epitaxial layer, an artificial microstructure, and a socket circuit. The applied voltage controls the distribution change of the two-dimensional electron gas in the HEMT, which in turn controls the resonance mode conversion in the artificial microstructure, thereby control the transmission of electromagnetic waves in the waveguide. The modulator has a modulation depth of up to 96% and a modulation rate above 2 GHz.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A terahertz wave modulator of a high electron mobility transistor loaded in a waveguide, comprising: a rectangular waveguide cavity and a modulation chip; wherein a wall of the rectangular waveguide cavity is made of metal, and the waveguide cavity has two waveguide ports: an input waveguide port and an output waveguide port; the modulation chip is embedded in the rectangular waveguide, erected in the waveguide cavity and parallel to the waveguide opening; the chip structure comprises a semiconductor substrate, a heterostructure epitaxial layer disposed on the semiconductor substrate, and an artificial microstructure disposed on the epitaxial layer; the artificial microstructure includes a modulation unit array and a socket circuit; each modulation unit in the modulation unit array comprises: a source resonator, a drain resonator, a gate connection line, and a semiconductor doped heterostructure; the source resonator and the drain resonator have the same I-shaped structure, and the two are symmetrically arranged on both sides of the gate connection line, and each has a mirror image structure; a lateral long branches of the I-shaped structure of adjacent source resonators are connected to each other, and the lateral long branches of the I-shaped structure of adjacent drain resonators are connected to each other; gate lines are arranged above the semiconductor doped heterostructure, and the gate connection lines of adjacent modulation units are connected to each other; the semiconductor doped heterostructure is connected to the lateral short branch of the I-shaped structure of the source resonator and the drain resonator, and the semiconductor doped heterostructure is provided to the lateral short branch of the I-shaped structure of the source resonator and the drain resonator below; the socket circuit comprises a positive voltage loading electrode and a negative voltage loading electrode; the positive voltage loading electrode and the negative voltage loading electrode are both longitudinally arranged metal strips, the positive voltage loading electrode is connected to the horizontal long branch of the I-shaped structure of the source resonator and the drain resonator, and the negative voltage loading electrode is connected to the gate connection line of the modulation unit.

2. The terahertz wave modulator of the high electron mobility transistor loaded in the waveguide, as recited in claim 1 , wherein the longitudinal width of the modulation chip is the same as the longitudinal width of the waveguide port, and the lateral width of the modulation chip is longer than the lateral width of the waveguide port.

3. The terahertz wave modulator of the high electron mobility transistor loaded in the waveguide, as recited in claim 1 , wherein a side of the artificial microstructure of the modulation chip faces the input waveguide port and a gap is left with the metal cavity wall, and the side of the semiconductor substrate of the modulation chip faces the output waveguide port and is connected to the metal cavity wall.

4. The terahertz wave modulator of the high electron mobility transistor loaded in the waveguide, as recited in claim 1 , wherein at a junction of the longitudinal left and right side walls of the waveguide and the modulation chip, each has an opening of the same size; the longitudinal height of the opening is the same as the longitudinal height of the chip; and the lateral width of the opening is longer than the thickness of the chip.

5. The terahertz wave modulator of the high electron mobility transistor loaded in the waveguide, as recited in claim 1 , wherein the lateral short branches in the I-shaped structure of the source resonator and the drain resonator are connected to the semiconductor doped heterostructure through an ohmic contact electrode.

6. The terahertz wave modulator of the high electron mobility transistor loaded in the waveguide, as recited in claim 1 , wherein the modulation array is an M*N type array composed of multiple modulation units, M represents the number of rows of the modulation array, and N represents the number of modulation units in each row, where M≥1, N≥1.

7. The terahertz wave modulator of the high electron mobility transistor loaded in the waveguide, as recited in claim 1 , wherein the metal material of the waveguide cavity wall is oxygen-free copper, brass or aluminum.

8. The terahertz wave modulator of the high electron mobility transistor loaded in the waveguide, as recited in claim 1 , wherein a material of the ohmic contact electrode is Ti, Al, Ni or Au.

9. The terahertz wave modulator of the high electron mobility transistor loaded in the waveguide, as recited in claim 1 , wherein the material of the doped heterojunction structure is AlGaN/GaN, InGaN/GaN, AlGaAs/GaAs, AlGaAs/InGaAs or AlGaAs/InGaAs/InP, wherein the diagonal line indicates the combination of the two materials.

Assignees

• Univ Electronic Sci & Tech China

Inventors

• Zhang Yaxin
• Liang Shixiong
• Zhang Xilin
• Yang Ziqiang Yang
• Feng Zhihong

Classifications

• H03C7/025

  using semiconductor devices · CPC title

• G02F1/025 Primary

  in an optical waveguide structure (G02F1/017, {G02F1/2257} take precedence) · CPC title

• G02F1/0081 Primary

  Electric or magnetic properties · CPC title

• G02F2203/13

  involving THZ radiation · CPC title

• H01P3/12

  Hollow waveguides (H01P3/20 takes precedence) · CPC title