A 50 GHz broad-band monolithic GaAs/AlAs resonant tunneling diode trigger circuit

This paper describes the design, circuit simulation, fabrication and testing of a 50 GHz trigger circuit using GaAs/AlAs resonant tunneling diodes. A new trigger circuit was designed to eliminate the 180° phase splitter used in a previous complementary input trigger circuit. Our monolithic approach, integrated GaAs/AlAs resonant tunneling diodes (in a back-to-back configuration) and a 50 Ω coplanar waveguide, minimized the parasitic circuit elements and internal reflections from the package thus achieving high frequency operation. The circuit was able to trigger on input sinusoidal waves of input powers of -3 dBm up to 50 GHz with time jitter of less than 1 ps rms over the entire measured frequency range from 5 to 50 GHz. The upper limit of 50 GHz was imposed by our measurement system