Investigation of subharmonic mixer based on a quantum barrier device

This paper presents our findings on novel subharmonic mixers using quantum barrier devices. These devices appear to be ideally suited to terahertz operation because of their highly nonlinear and predictable characteristics. Analytical evidence, together with experimental proof-of-principle results, is presented for a quantum-barrier-device mixer in order to demonstrate the result of intrinsic effects that effectively control the device nonlinearities and, therefore, the mixing performance. Such behavior is not found in Schottky junctions, and can be used to provide efficient subharmonic operation at terahertz frequencies with the significant advantage of permitting the use of very low levels of local-oscillator power