Resonant tunneling diodes as sources for millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths

High quality resonant tunneling diodes have been fabricated and tested as sources for millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The devices have shown excellent I-V characteristics with peak-to-valley current ratios as high as 6:1 and current densities in the range of 50-150 kA/cm/sup 2/ at 300 K. Used as local oscillators, the diodes are capable of state of the art output power delivered by AlGaAs-based tunneling devices. As harmonic multipliers, a frequency of 320 GHz has been achieved by quintupling the fundamental oscillation of a klystron source.<
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