Gallium Phosphide IMPATT Sources for Millimeter-Wave Applications

The potentiality of millimter-wave (mm-wave) double-drift region (DDR) impact avalanche transit time (IMPATT) diodes based on a wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor material, Gallium Phosphide (GaP) has been explored in this paper. A non-sinusoidal voltage excited (NSVE) large-signal simulation method has been used to study the DC and high frequency characteristics of DDR GaP IMPATTs dsigned to operate at mm-wave atmospheric window frequencies such as 94, 140 and 220 GHz. Results show that the DDR GaP IMPATTs are capable of delivering significantly higher RF power at the above mentioned window frequencies as compared to the DDR IMPATTs based on the conventional narrow bandgap (NBG) base materials such as Si, GaAs and InP.