Resonant-Tunneling Diode as an Active Element of Lownoise Terahertz Subharmonic Mixer

It is shown, that the properly designed resonant-tunneling diode (RTD) can be successfully employed as an active element of terahertz subharmonic mixer. This RTD based mixer has some advantages over the other mixers, in particular has lower noise figure. The optimal RTD layer thicknesses were simulated with respect to RTD operation as subharmonic mixer. The simulations have been done for two types of RTD structures: InGaAs well with InAlAs barriers and InGaAs well with AlAs barriers.