Illumination study of a quantum MIM diode for the mid-infrared

Abstract

Metal-insulator-metal (MIM) junctions with insulators a few nanometers thick are quantum-tunneling diodes able to operate at frequencies up to ${10}^{15}$ Hz. However, their main limitation is their poor harvested current. This paper demonstrates that a distributed illumination produced by combining a beam splitter with the Kretschmann and Reather prism-based configuration extends the tunneling event to the entire junction length with the same probability all along the junction. This increases the harvested quantum-tunneling current and the diode responsivity.

Keywords:

• ADE-FDTD
• vectro fitting
• quantum tunneling effect
• quantum diode
• metal–insulator–metal junction
• mixing at infrared
• Kretschmann illumination

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the experimental data provided by Javier Alvarez that has made possible to model the quantum-tunneling current. Also, we would like to thank Gabriel Pereira for his transcriptions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

E. Moreno http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5304-1311

E. Michael http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5373-1830

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by the Project FONDECYT number 3180130.

Notes on contributors

E. Moreno

Enrique Moreno received a BS degree in applied physics and instrumentation from Cork Institute of Technology, Cork, Ireland, in 2008, a BS degree in fundamental physics and MS degree in advanced methods and techniques in physics in 2009 and 2010, respectively, from the University of Granada, Granada, Spain. In 2015 he received the PhD in physics and mathematics from the University of Granada, Granada, Spain. He worked in electromagnetic compatibility problems from 2015 to 2018. In 2018 he became a member of the Radio Astronomical Instrumentation Group at the University of Chile, in Chile, through competitive funding.

E. Michael

Ernest A. Michael received the degree in physics (for plasma physics) from the Physics Institute II, University of Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1989, and the PhD degree from the 1. Institute of Physics University of Cologne (for radio astronomy and astrophysical spectroscopy) in 1995. His PhD thesis was on a novel type of optically pumped far-infrared laser, which he later combined during a post-doctoral time with a backward-wave oscillator to a novel type of terahertz sideband spectrometer. In 1997, he started a research stipend in terahertz spectroscopy in the Saykally Group, Chemistry Department, University of California at Berkeley. After returning to Germany in 1999, he served as an Astronomical Instrumentation Scientist for the 1. Institute of Physics at the University of Cologne and the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, involved in developing submm-heterodyne receivers and photomixers for terahertz generation. Since2008, he has been an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, FCFM Engineering Faculty, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile, where he became a Foundation Member of the Radio Astronomical Instrumentation Group and has been developing the Terahertz- and Astro-Photonics Laboratory through competitive funding.