Tunable room temperature terahertz sources based on two dimensional plasma instability in GaN HEMTs

In this work, we report on room temperature terahertz radiation from sub-micron size GaN/AlGaN based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). They could successfully replace the standard Fourier Transform spectrometer source and were investigated with a standard Si-bolometer as a detector. The relatively broad (∼1THz) emission line was observed. The maxima were found to be tunable by the gate voltage between 0.75 and 2.1 THz. The observed emission was interpreted as due to the current driven plasma waves instability in the two-dimensional electron gas. The emitted power from a single device reached 150 nW, showing possible application of these transistors as compact sources for terahertz spectroscopy and imaging.