| 摘要 |
An optoelectronic device based on a conduction constriction through which charge carriers pass ballistically. The constriction has a cross-sectional area of 2 square microns or less and a thickness D and is made of doped semiconductor material with a carrier mobility mu . The thickness D is selected to be near to a characteristic path length Dmes defined by D2mes=(h/2e)* mu where h is Planck's constant and e the elementary charge. The device can be used as a heterodyne radiation detector for detecting radiation in the frequency range between 3 GHz and 3 THz and is capable of detecting signals with a power of less than 10-14 watts in room temperature operation. The device can also be operated as the front end of a spectrometer. Other applications of the device include use as a high frequency AC current source or oscillator for microelectronics, for instance in the 100 to 500 GHz range.
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