Simulation of THz emission by plasma waves in GaAs devices based on the Boltzmann transport equation

Plasma oscillation in a submicron gate length field effect transistor is a promising candidate for terahertz emissions. The transport model plays a significant role for the simulation of the instability leading to the self excitation of plasma oscillations. For this purpose, the growth rate and frequency of the plasma instability are compared using a simple transport model based on the Euler equation and the complete Boltzmann transport equation. The comparison shows that the simple transport model fails to capture important aspects included in the Boltzmann equation concerning the generation of plasma waves at high electric fields and low temperatures.