This is a brief overview of the main physical ideas for application of field effect transistors for generation and detection of TeraHertz radiation. Resonant frequencies of the two-dimensional plasma oscillations in FETs increase with the reduction of the channel dimensions and reach the THz range for sub-micron gate lengths. When the mobility is high enough, the dynamics of a short channel FET at THz frequencies is dominated by plasma waves. This may result, on the one hand, in a spontaneous generation of plasma waves by a dc current and on the other hand, in a resonant response to the incoming radiation. In the opposite case, when plasma oscillations are overdamped, the FET can operate as an efficient broadband THz detector.
@article{arxiv.1103.4316,
title = {Generation and detection of Terahertz radiation by Field Effect Transistors},
author = {M. I. Dyakonov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1103.4316},
year = {2015}
}