Plasma Instability and Wave Propagation in Gate-Controlled GaN Conduction Channels

The plasma wave in the conduction channel of a semiconductor heterostructure high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) can be excited at frequencies significantly higher than the cut-off frequency in a short channel device. The hydrodynamic model predicts a resonance response to applied harmonic signal at the plasma oscillation frequency. When either the ac voltage induced in the channel by the signal at the gate or the current applied at the drain or source contact are not very small, the plasma waves in the semiconductor channel will propagate as a shock wave. The device can be used either as a detector or a tunable source of terahertz range radiation. Using the parameters appropriate for the GaN channel we show that in both configurations the charge flow develops shock waves due to hydrodynamic nonlinearities. In a sufficiently wide channel the wave propagation separates into two or more different bands giving a two-dimensional structure to the waves.