Simulation study for the use of transistor contacts for sub-terahertz radiation detection

摘要

Despite the increasing evidence that on-chip metallisation layer plays the role of an antenna in field effect transistor terahertz detectors, sufficient study and analysis of this role remain lacking. Three-dimensional (3D) simulation is used to study the efficiency of sub-terahertz electromagnetic radiation coupling to on-chip metallisation layer components. The results suggest that on-chip metallisation, especially the contacts of the field effect transistor, can be used as an effective antenna with reasonable efficiency. The two basic structures tested are the laterally stacked as well as vertically stacked contacts. The effect of varying a number of design parameters of the suggested test structures (e.g. substrate/inter-metal-dielectric thickness, and contacts dimensions) is studied using 3D simulation, and the overall detection efficiency is extracted in each case. These results are used to extract broad guidelines for the efficient use of the on-chip metallisation layer as an effective detecting antenna in sub-terahertz radiation detectors