| 摘要 |
The present invention comprises a novel semiconductor device which further comprises a nonlinear transmission-line structure. The semiconductor device is that of a very long narrow voltage-dependent capacitor, such as a semiconductor diode or MOS capacitor, where the anode and cathode electrodes comprise the conductors of a transmission line and the depletion region comprises the dielectric of the transmission line. An input signal is applied at one end of the long, narrow structure. Such signal application results in the launch of a traveling wave traveling along the transmission-line structure. At the far end of the transmission-line structure, the signal is coupled out and applied to a load. The temporal and spatial modulation of the depletion capacitance of the semiconductor device as the traveling wave travels along the transmission-line structure results in temporal compression of the input signal. Input signals of comparatively slow transition time therefore have their transition time reduced such that the transition time of the output signal is much faster than that of the input signal. Output signals exhibiting picosecond transition times may be obtained from input signals exhibiting nanosecond transition times. Further, since the nonlinear transmission line according to the present invention may incorporate many of the properties of conventional semiconductor devices, but in a novel configuration, comparatively high-voltage nonlinear transmission lines according the present invention may be fabricated to provide correspondingly high-voltage, or high-current, output signals.
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