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We report experimental evidence that an ErAs quantum-dot array in a GaAs matrix under 1550 nm pulsed excitation produces cooperative spontaneous emission-Dicke superradiance-in the terahertz frequency region at room temperature., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

Here we present an original study of the effect of hydration on Terahertz absorption signatures in biomolecular (lactose monohydrate and biotin) and bioparticles( Bacillus thuringiensis and Bacillus cereus spores). We observe "read-shift" in center frequency with increasing hydration in all samples, consistent with Lorentzian-oscillator behavior. But the effect of hydration on linewidth is ambiguous, sometimes increasing the linewdith (consistent with Lorentzian behaviour) and sometimes decreasing the linewidth.

We report here the first RF noise measurements on two designs of n-doped GaN/AlN double-barrier resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs), each having a room-temperature negative differential resistance (NDR) and also strong near-UV light emission. The measurements are made with a standard, un-isolated RF receiver and calibration is made using a substitution-resistor/hot-cold radiometric technique which works in the positive differential resistance (PDR) region but not the NDR region. A high-quality InGaAs/AlAs double-barrier RTD is used as a control sample and displays shot noise suppression down to $\Gamma\approx$0.5 in the PDR region, as expected. The GaN/AlN RTDs display both shot-noise enhancement and suppression in the PDR regions, but no obvious sign of sudden shot-noise enhancement in the threshold bias region of light emission. This supports the hypothesis that the holes required for light emission are created by electronic (Zener) interband tunneling, not impact ionization. Further the minimum shot-noise factor of $\Gamma\sim$ 0.34 suggests that the GaN/AlN RTDs are acting like triple-barrier devices., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures

We report strong light emission from a room-temperature n-type unipolar-doped In0.53Ga0.47As/AlAs double-barrier resonant-tunneling diode (DBRTD) precisely at the In0.53Ga0.47As band-edge near 1650 nm. The emission characteristics are very similar to what was observed recently in GaN/AlN DBRTDs, both of which suggest that the mechanism for emission is cross-gap electron-hole recombination via resonant- and Zener co-tunneling of electrons, the latter mechanism generating the required holes. Analysis shows that because of the relatively small bandgap, the Zener tunneling probability can be large in this In0.53Ga0.47As/AlAs DBRTD, and is a mechanism that may have been overlooked in the longstanding literature. The universal nature of the co-tunneling is best supported by the factor (EG)2/F in the Kane tunneling probability, which is nearly the same at the peak voltage of the In0.53Ga0.47As and GaN DBRTDs.

We report anomalous critical transport behavior in a GaAs structure containing a dense array of ErAs quantum dots. The structure displays a voltage (electric field)-controlled insulator-to-metal transition and strong hysteresis in the Kondo-like current-vs-temperature characteristic, with critical temperatures as high as 50 K. We attribute this behavior to a strong distributed Kondo resonance between the quantum dots after the Coulomb blockade of the array is lifted. This is consistent with a high sensitivity of the phase transition to a small external magnetic field that we have observed in the Voigt configuration, and a phenomenological model based on the RKKY interaction within a quantum dot and the cooperative Kondo-resonance amongst quantum dots., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures

The photoconductions of ultrafast InGaAs:ErAs nanocomposites at low temperatures were investigated. The parabolic Tauc edge as well as the exponential Urbach tail are identified in the absorption spectrum. The Tauc edge supports that the density of states at the bottom of conduction band is proportional to the square root of energy. The Urbach edge is attributed to interband transition caused by smooth microscopic internal fields. The square root of mean-squared internal fields, whose distribution is Gaussian, is found in the order of $10^{5}$V/cm, agreeing very well with the theoretical predictions by Esser (B. ~ Esser, Phys. stat. sol. (b), vol. 51, 735 (1972)).

This article presents studies on low-field electrical conduction in the range 4-to-300 K for a ultrafast material: InGaAs:ErAs grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The unique properties include nano-scale ErAs crystallines in host semiconductor, a deep Fermi level, and picosecond ultrafast photocarrier recombination. As the temperature drops, the conduction mechanisms are in the sequence of thermal activation, nearest-neighbor hopping, variable-range hopping, and Anderson localization. In the low-temperature limit, finite-conductivity metallic behavior, not insulating, was observed. This unusual conduction behavior is explained with the Abrahams scaling theory.

A triple-well resonant-tunneling structure made from the In(0.53)Ga(0.47)As/AlAs material system yields a broad negative differential resistance (NDR) region without the precipitous drop in current that occurs in single-well structures. This NDR characteristic is attributed to resonant tunneling through mixed quasi-bound states. A diode made from this structure is used to generate a nearly constant power of 0.5 mW up to 16 GHz.

The resonant tunnelling diode (RTD) oscillator has been demonstrated for the first time as a local oscillator (LO) in a heterodyne receiver. Noise measurements made on a sensitive 200 GHz superconductor-insulator-superconductor receiver using both a multiplied Gunn diode and an RTD oscillator as the LO revealed no difference in receiver noise as a function of oscillator type.

A new type of resonant-tunneling diode (RTD) oscillator that generates 5 mW at 1.18 GHz is reported. This result was obtained by connecting in parallel 25 individual diodes designed for such a connection. This experiment demonstrates that RTDs can successfully be used in a chip-level power-combining circuit.

We have fabricated and characterized a quasioptically stabilized resonant-tunneling-diode (RTD) oscillator having attractive performance characteristics for application as a radiometric local oscillator. The fundamental frequency of the oscillator is tunable from about 200 to 215 GHz, the instantaneous linewidth is between 10 and 20 kHz, and the output power across the tuning band is about 50 micro-W. The narrow linewidth and fine tuning of the frequency are made possible by a scanning semiconfocal open cavity which acts as the high-Q resonator for the oscillator. The cavity is compact, portable, and insensitive to vibration and temperature variation. The total dc power consumption (RTD plus bias supply) is only 10 mW. The present oscillator provides the highest power obtained to date from an RTD above 200 GHz. We attribute this partly to the use of the quasioptical resonator, but primarily to the quality of the RTD. It is fabricated from the In(0.53)Ga(0.47)As/AlAs materials system, which historically has yielded the best overall resonant-tunneling characteristics of any material system. The RTD active area is 4 sq microns, and the room-temperature peak current density and peak-to-valley current ratio are 2.5x10(exp 5) A cm(exp -2) and 9, respectively. The RTD is mounted in a WR-3 standard-height rectangular waveguide and is contacted across the waveguide by a fine wire that protrudes through a via hole in a Si3N4 'honeycomb' overlayer. We estimate that the theoretical maximum frequency of oscillation of this RTD is approximately 1.1 THz, and that scaled-down versions of the same quasioptical oscillator design should operate in a fundamental mode up to frequencies of at least 500 GHz.

Oscillations have been obtained at frequencies from 100 to 712 GHz in InAs/AlSb double-barrier resonant-tunneling diodes at room temperature. The measured power density at 360 GHz was 90 W/sq cm, which is 50 times that generated by GaAs/AlAs diodes at essentially the same frequency. The oscillation at 712 GHz represents the highest frequency reported to date from a solid-state electronic oscillator at room temperature.

A resonant-tunneling diode has oscillated at X-band frequencies in a microwave circuit consisting of a slot antenna coupled to a semiconfocal open resonator. Coupling between the open resonator and the slot oscillator improves the noise-to-carrier ratio by about 36 dB relative to that of the slot oscillator alone in the 100-200 kHz range. A circuit operating near 10 GHz has been designed as a scale model for millimeter- and submillimeter-wave applications.

InAs/AlSb double-barrier resonant tunneling diodes with peak current densities up to 370,000 A/sq cm and high peak-to-valley current ratios of 3.2 at room temperature have been fabricated. The peak current density is well-explained by a stationary-state transport model with the two-band envelope function approximation. The valley current density predicted by this model is less than the experimental value by a factor that is typical of the discrepancy found in other double-barrier structures. It is concluded that threading dislocations are largely inactive in the resonant tunneling process.

Advances in high-frequency resonant-tunneling-diode (RTD) oscillators are described. Oscillations up to a frequency of 420 GHz have been achieved in the GaAs/AlAs system. Recent results obtained with In0.53Ga0.47As/AlAs and InAs/AlSb RTDs show a greatly increased power density and indicate the potential for fundamental oscillations up to about 1 THz. These results are consistent with a lumped-element equivalent circuit model of the RTD. The model shows that the maximum oscillation frequency of the GaAs/AlAs RTDs is limited primarily by series resistance, and that the power density is limited by low peak-to-valley current ratio.

This paper demonstrates the use of resonant-tunneling diodes as varistors for harmonic multiplication. It is shown that efficient odd-harmonic conversion is possible and that even harmonics do not appear because of the antisymmetry of the current-voltage (I-V) curve. It is also shown that, with the proper choice of resonant-tunneling structure and pump amplitude, most of the harmonic output power can be confined to a single odd-harmonic frequency. Fifth-harmonic multiplication was demonstrated with an output at 21.75 GHz and a power conversion efficiency of 0.5 percent, and a fifth-harmonic efficiency of 2.7 percent was achieved in a circuit simulation using an improved I-V curve.

Recent observations of oscillation frequencies up to 56 GHz in resonant tunneling structures are discussed in relation to calculations by several authors of the ultimate frequency limits of these devices. It is found that calculations relying on the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation give limits well below the observed oscillation frequencies. Two other techniques for calculating the upper frequency limit were found to give more reasonable results. One method employs the solution of the time-dependent Schroedinger equation obtained by Kundrotas and Dargys (1986); the other uses the energy width of the transmission function for electrons through the double-barrier structure. This last technique is believed to be the most accurate since it is based on general results for the lifetime of any resonant state. It gives frequency limits on the order of 1 THz for two recently fabricated structures. It appears that the primary limitation of the oscillation frequency for double-barrier resonant-tunneling diodes is imposed by intrinsic device circuit parameters and by the transit time of the depletion layer rather than by time delays encountered in the double-barrier region.

A double-barrier diode at room temperature has yielded oscillations with fundamental frequencies up to 56 GHz and second harmonics up to 87 GHz. The output powers at these frequencies were about 60 and 18 microW, respectively. These results are attributed to a recent improvement in the material parameters of the device and to the integration of the device into a waveguide resonator. The most successful diode to date has thin (about 1.5 nm) AlAs barriers, a 4.5-nm-wide GaAs quantum well, and 2 x 10 to the 17th/cu cm doping concentration in the n-GaAs outside the barriers. This particular diode is expected to oscillate at frequencies higher than those achieved by any reported p-n tunnel diode.

A heterodyne receiver has been developed for observation of interstellar atomic and molecular lines in the submillimeter wavelength region. The main detection mechanism of the device is cyclotron resonance in bulk n-InSb due to a quantized magnetic field. Measurements were carried out between 492 and 812 GHz in order to determine the sensitivity of the device for astrophysical applications. Double sideband receiver noise temperatures of 250 K at 492 GHz; 350 K at 625 GHz; and 510 K at 812 GHz were obtained. The magnetic induction for the laboratory tests was about 2.5 KG and the mixer operating temperature was about 1.6 K. It is shown that the receiver is sensitive enough to identify the narrow rotation lines of diatomic hydrides in dark-cloud regions of the interstellar medium.

Spectra are presented of the responsivity and noise equivalent power (NEP) of liquid-helium-cooled InSb detectors as a function of magnetic field in the range 20-110 per cm. The measurements are all made using a Fourier transform spectrometer with thermal sources. The results show a discernable peak in the detector response at the conduction electron cyclotron resonance (CCR) frequency for magnetic fields as low as 3 kG. The magnitude of responsivity at the resonance peaks is roughly constant with magnetic field and is comparable to the low-frequency hot-electron bolometer response. The NEP at the peaks is found to be comparable to the best long wavelength results previously reported. For example, NEP = 4.5 x 10 to the 13th W/(square root of Hz) at 4.2 K, 6 kG, and 40 per cm was measured. The InSb CCR will provide a much improved detector for laboratory spectroscopy, as compared with hot electron bolometers, in the 20-100 per cm range.

A relatively simple room-temperature preamp design that satisfies both the low-noise and wideband requirements for the InSb Putley-mode detector and which is based on a common-drain JFET input, is presented. The design has an input capacitance of 28 pf which is much less than comparably noisy common-source amplifiers. It can be used for preamplification of 0.1 to 10 MHz signals from liquid-helium-cooled radiation detectors.

The absorption coefficient of two high-purity n-InSb samples is measured in the 10-40 per cm range using Fourier transform spectroscopy. The absorption coefficient spectrum is presented for both samples at 4.2 K. It is also shown for the lower resistance sample cooled to 2.2 K and heated by dc bias to elevated electron gas temperatures of 7.5 and 17.9 K. ac Drude theory gives rather poor agreement with experiment at 2.2 and 4.2 K but does much better when the sample electron gas is heated. In contrast, a simple quantum mechanical theory of absorption based on inverse Bremsstrahlung yields promising agreement at the lower temperatures although its applicability is questionable. The non-Drudian absorption is shown to have a favorable effect on the performance of InSb hot-electron bolometers.