Terahertz Resonant Detection by Plasma Waves in Nanometric Transistors

The plasma waves in gated two-dimensional electron gas have a linear dispersion law, similar to the sound waves. The transistor channel is acting as a resonator cavity for the plasma waves, which can reach frequencies in the THz range for a sufficiently short gate length field effect transistors. A variety of possible applications of field effect transistor operating as a THz device were suggested. In particular, it was shown that the nonlinear properties of plasma oscillations can be utilized for THz tunable detectors. During the last few years THz detection related to plasma wave instabilities in nanometer size field effect transistors was demonstrated experimentally. In this work we review our recent experimental results on the resonant plasma wave detection at cryogenic and room temperatures.