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

提出了一项为期3年的三所大学(俄亥俄州立大学、莱特州立大学和德克萨斯州立大学)项目，旨在开发一种新的基于量子隧道的高效和稳定的振荡器电路。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。基于隧道二极管的振荡器过去的稳定性问题是通过在负差阻区之外振荡来解决的。这种更大的电压摆幅也提供了更大的输出功率。将努力通过电磁建模模拟将它们的工作频率扩展到最先进的水平之外。它们的简单性和低功耗也可能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莱特州立大学得到直接资助。每组入围的候选人研究生都是女性本科生，她们的研究生涯都是在伯杰的实验室开始的。将申请补充资金，以额外支持1-2名本科生，并进行科学访问，以延续这一遗产。该项目通过发展低成本、超低功耗的射频源和稳定的射频源，为紧凑型时钟信号产生的新进展提供了巨大的社会和人类利益。该项目的一个主要目标是开发和成熟一种基于隧道二极管的新型稳定振荡器，该振荡器通过在负差阻区以外振荡来解决隧道二极管稳定性问题。这种更大的电压摆幅也提供了更大的输出功率。利用他们的第一份关于量子井寿命对大信号共振隧穿二极管开关时间影响的实验确定报告，该团队现在准备推进具有高转换效率的紧凑型振荡器电路，产生强大而稳定的输出功率。基于隧道二极管的电路将提供(I)弛豫振荡器的显著进步，以解决隧道二极管稳定性问题，这阻碍了共振隧道二极管的采用；(Ii)创建了一种全新的“多米诺骨牌放大器”，它使用逐渐增大的隧道二极管尺寸并同时增加输出功率，将每个弛豫振荡器级与下一级进行菊花链。如果没有弛豫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，从而阻碍了这种新方法。过去对弛豫振荡器的研究表明，如预期的那样，其产生的射频输出功率超过1兆瓦，但其最大(重复)振荡频率仅为50 GHz]，远远低于预期。这将是拟议研究的早期主题，其中将模拟全波电磁和非线性器件/电路相互作用，特别是检查平面传输线色散和短路反射的影响。这些知识将被用来展示一种全新的、具有潜在革命性的隧道二极管开关元件--“多米诺骨牌”脉冲放大器。多米诺放大器能够利用隧道二极管的固有快速开关来产生单边的大信号增益。拟议工作的所有材料都将以InP为基础。根据峰谷电流比、峰值电流密度、最大振荡频率和开关时间来衡量，这些材料已经制造出了一些迄今为止最好的共振隧穿二极管。系统地探索和发展了三个垂直集成研究方向的共振隧道二极管技术：(I)使用非平衡格林函数的先进外延控制和基于量子器件的物理设计；(Ii)紧凑型高功率共振隧道二极管弛豫振荡器；(Iii)新型多米诺骨牌放大器；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.