A Microelectronic Terahertz Source Using Multiple Field Emitter Cathodes With an Array of Coupled Cavities

Compact, high-power, and broad-spectral coverage terahertz sources have application prospects in diverse scientific and technological fields, which attract great interest from researchers. The recently developed microelectronic device, a so- called terahertz laser diode (TLD), affords a promising candidate to develop desirable terahertz sources. However, the performances and the accessibility of TLD have unavoidable restrictions in the practices. In this article, we propose an enhanced TLD, which uses multiple field-emitter cathodes with an array of coupled cavities. The power and efficiency can be several times higher than that in previous TLDs. The required electric field intensity and the emission current density from the field-emitter cathode can be significantly reduced, which enables established field-emitting materials to be applicable and decreases the manufacturing difficulty as well. In addition, the fields in different cavities can be coupled, forming a series of unified oscillation modes, which can work as operation modes with various output frequencies. This improved TLD is attractive for developing compact, high-power, and broad-spectrum coverage terahertz sources for practices.