Collaborative Proposal: RTD-based Relaxation Oscillators (RTD-RO) to Increase Output Power and Overcome DC Stability Issues

一个为期3年的三所大学（俄亥俄州立大学、赖特州立大学和德克萨斯州立大学）项目提出了一种基于量子隧道的新型高效稳定的振荡器电路。它将探索一类基于隧道二极管的弛豫振荡器，并将其扩展到一种新的多米诺效应脉冲放大器设计。过去隧道二极管振荡器的稳定性问题是通过在负差分电阻区域以外振荡来解决的。这种较大的电压摆幅也提供了显著较大的输出功率。将努力通过电磁建模模拟来扩展其工作频率，使其超过最先进的水平。它们的简单性和低功耗也使它们成为物联网对象的候选者。基于隧道二极管的电子学为节能“绿色”电路提供了一条途径，同时具有高输出功率和前所未有的稳定性。全日制研究生将在俄亥俄州立大学和赖特州立大学直接获得资助。每组的候选研究生都是在伯杰实验室开始其研究生涯的女本科生。我们将申请额外拨款，以支持1-2名本科生，以及科学访问，以延续这一遗产。该项目通过推进低成本、超低功耗的射频源和稳定的射频源，为紧凑时钟信号的产生提供了新的进展，为社会和人类带来了巨大的利益。本项目振荡器设计、传输线建模和射频测量的关键目标是开发和成熟一种新型的稳定隧道二极管振荡器，该振荡器通过在负差分电阻区域以外振荡来解决隧道二极管的稳定性问题。这种较大的电压摆幅也提供了显著较大的输出功率。该团队的进展，利用他们的第一份实验报告，确定了量子阱寿命对大信号谐振隧道二极管开关时间的影响，该团队现在准备推进具有高转换效率的紧凑振荡器电路，产生大而稳定的输出功率。基于隧道二极管的电路将提供(i)解决阻碍隧道二极管采用的隧道二极管稳定性问题的松弛振荡器的重大进步，以及（ii）创建一个全新的“多米诺骨牌放大器”，使用逐步增大的隧道二极管尺寸，同时增加输出功率，将每个松弛振荡器级连接到下一级。如果没有松弛振荡器设计所提供的稳定性，基于隧道二极管的大型振荡器将太不稳定，从而阻碍了这种新颖的方法。弛豫振荡器在过去已经被研究过，并显示出产生超过1兆瓦的射频输出功率，正如预期的那样，但是它们的振荡的最大（重复）频率只有50千兆赫，远低于预期。这将是提议的研究的早期主题，其中全波电磁学和非线性器件/电路相互作用将被模拟，特别是检查平面传输线色散和短路反射率的影响。这些知识将被用来演示一个全新的和潜在的革命性的隧道二极管开关组件-“多米诺”脉冲放大器。多米诺放大器具有利用固有的快速隧道二极管开关来创建单边大信号增益的能力。所提议的工作的所有材料都将基于InP。通过测量峰谷电流比、峰值电流密度、最大振荡频率和开关时间，这些材料已经产生了一些迄今为止最好的谐振隧道二极管。在三个垂直整合的研究重点中系统地探索和发展谐振隧道二极管技术：(i)使用非平衡格林函数的先进外延控制和基于量子的器件物理设计，（ii）基于紧密型高功率谐振隧道二极管的弛化振荡器，（iii）新型多米诺放大器，以及（iv）非线性器件，集成电路相互作用和电磁学。

A 3-year tri-university (Ohio State, Wright State and Texas State) project is proposed to advance a new class of efficient and stable oscillator circuits based upon quantum tunneling. It will explore a class of tunnel diode based relaxation oscillators and extend this to a novel domino effect pulse amplifier design. Past stability issues of tunnel diode based oscillators are addressed by oscillating beyond the negative differential resistance region. This larger voltage swing also provides for significantly larger output powers. Effort will be made to extend their operational frequency beyond the state-of-the-art through electromagnetic modeling simulations. Their simplicity and low-power consumption could also make them a candidate for Internet-of-Things objects. Tunnel diode based electronics provides a pathway for energy thrifty "green" circuitry with concurrently high output power and with unprecedented stability. A full-time graduate student will be directly supported at both Ohio State and Wright State. The shortlist candidate graduate student for each group are both female undergraduates who began their research career as undergraduates in Berger's lab. Supplemental funding requests will be applied for to support 1-2 undergraduates additionally, along with scientific visitations, to perpetuate this legacy. This project provides tremendous benefits to society and humankind by advancing low-cost, ultra-low power consumption radio frequency sources, and stable radio frequency sources for new advances in compact clock signal generation.A key aim of this project oscillator design, transmission line modeling and radio frequency measurements to develop and mature a new type of stable tunnel diode based oscillator that addresses the tunnel diode stability issues by oscillating beyond the negative differential resistance region. This larger voltage swing also provides for significantly larger output powers. Advances by this team, leveraging their first report of the experimental determination of the quantum-well lifetime influence upon the large-signal resonant tunneling diode switching time, this team now is poised to advance compact oscillator circuits with high conversion efficiencies, generating large and stable output powers. The tunnel diode based circuitry will provide (i) for the significant advancement of relaxation oscillators that address the tunnel diode stability issues which thwarted resonant tunneling diode adoption, and (ii) creation of a wholly new "domino amplifier" that daisy chains each relaxation oscillator stage to the next using progressively larger tunnel diode sizes with concurrently increasing output powers. Without the stability afforded by the relaxation oscillator design, large tunnel diode based oscillators would be too unstable, and thus prevent this novel approach. The relaxation oscillators have been studied in the past and shown to produce radio frequency output power exceeding 1 mW, as expected, but their maximum (repetition) frequency of oscillation has only been 50 GHz], well below the expectation. This will be an early topic of the proposed study where full- wave electromagnetics and nonlinear-device/circuit interactions will be simulated, especially examining the effect of planar-transmission line dispersion and short-circuit reflectance. This knowledge will then be used to demonstrate a totally new and potentially revolutionary tunnel diode switching component - the "domino" pulse amplifier. The domino amplifier has the ability to utilize inherently fast tunnel diode switching to create unilateral, large-signal gain. All of the materials for the proposed effort will be InP based. These materials have produced some of the best resonant tunneling diodes to date as measured by peak-to-valley current ratio, peak current density, maximum frequency of oscillation, and switching time. A systematic exploration and development of resonant tunneling diode technology in three vertically integrated research thrusts: (i) advanced epitaxial control and quantum-based device physics design using non-equilibrium Green's function, (ii) compact high-power resonant tunneling diode based relaxation oscillators, (iii) novel domino amplifiers, and (iv) nonlinear-device, integrated-circuit interaction and electromagnetics.