Current-frequency characteristics of submicrometer GaAs Schottky barrier diodes with femtofarad capacitance

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Abstract
At room temperature different GaAs Schottky barrierdiodes with submicrometer structure and ∼fF capacitanceC have been investigated in a heterodyne receiver. Using microwave sources and submillimeter lasers as the local oscillator (LO) they show that the number of electrons N e passing through the Schottky contact each LO cycle is constant and is a characteristic value for each diode type. This is expressed by the experimentally derived equation for the optimum current I=N e eν (e is the electronic charge and ν the frequency of the radiation). The required optimum LO voltage amplitude V LO is independent of operating frequency and fulfills the equation VLO=(N e e)/2C.