Acoustic and optical plasmons excitation in double-channel AlGaN/GaN HEMT under asymmetric boundaries

We have simulatively studied the electrical excitation of acoustic and optical plasmons in double-channel AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) under asymmetric boundaries. By solving the self-consistent hydrodynamic model with Maxwell’s equations, it is found that the drift plasmons are excited in the bilayer 2DEGs under asymmetric boundaries. The oscillation intensity in a bilayer system is much stronger than that in a monolayer 2DEG system because of the simultaneous excitation of the fundamental and the second harmonic components. The fundamental component always corresponds to the acoustic plasmon, while the optical plasmon can be excited when it is resonant with the second harmonic of the acoustic plasmon. Because of the out-of-phase properties of the acoustic plasmons, their radiated power is limited by the current cancellation. On the other hand, as the optical plasmons are excited, the radiated powers are much higher than those of the single channel HEMT due to the in-phase currents generated in the double layers. The effects of different parameters such as gate lengths, 2DEG spacings, and electron concentrations on plasmon excitations and THz emissions of double-channel HEMTs are analyzed in detail. The numerical results provide a more powerful terahertz radiation mechanism in double-channel HEMT compared with the Dyakonov–Shur instability in traditional single-channel HEMT.