Microwave properties of an inhomogeneous optically illuminated plasma in a microstrip gap

Chris D. Gamlath; David M. Benton; Martin J. Cryan

doi:10.1109/TMTT.2014.2387276

Microwave properties of an inhomogeneous optically illuminated plasma in a microstrip gap

Chris D. Gamlath, David M. Benton, Martin J. Cryan

Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AiPT)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The optical illumination of a microstrip gap on a thick semiconductor substrate creates an inhomogeneous electron-hole plasma in the gap region. This allows the study of the propagation mechanism through the plasma region. This paper uses a multilayer plasma model to explain the origin of high losses in such structures. Measured results are shown up to 50 GHz and show good agreement with the simulated multilayer model. The model also allows the estimation of certain key parameters of the plasma, such as carrier density and diffusion length, which are difficult to measure by direct means. The detailed model validation performed here will enable the design of more complex microwave structures based on this architecture. While this paper focuses on monocrystalline silicon as the substrate, the model is easily adaptable to other semiconductor materials such as GaAs.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	374-383
Number of pages	10
Journal	IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
Volume	63
Issue number	2
Early online date	19 Jan 2015
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/TMTT.2014.2387276
Publication status	Published - Feb 2015

Bibliographical note

© 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

Funding: EPSRC

Keywords

microwave photonics
plasmas
propagation in complex media
RF microwave photonic devices
silicon

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10.1109/TMTT.2014.2387276

Microwave properties of an inhomogeneous optically illuminated plasma in a microstrip gap
© 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Accepted author manuscript, 1.5 MB

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abstract = "The optical illumination of a microstrip gap on a thick semiconductor substrate creates an inhomogeneous electron-hole plasma in the gap region. This allows the study of the propagation mechanism through the plasma region. This paper uses a multilayer plasma model to explain the origin of high losses in such structures. Measured results are shown up to 50 GHz and show good agreement with the simulated multilayer model. The model also allows the estimation of certain key parameters of the plasma, such as carrier density and diffusion length, which are difficult to measure by direct means. The detailed model validation performed here will enable the design of more complex microwave structures based on this architecture. While this paper focuses on monocrystalline silicon as the substrate, the model is easily adaptable to other semiconductor materials such as GaAs.",

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Microwave properties of an inhomogeneous optically illuminated plasma in a microstrip gap

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