Abstract
This thesis is devoted to study of terahertz detectors based on field-effect transistors fabricated using silicon technology and they comparison to InGaAs/InP ones. The main research effort was devoted to the problem of detectors linearity at high radiation intensities. The photoresponse of field effect transistors to terahertz radiation in a wide range of intensities: from 0.5 mW/cm2 up to 500 kW/cm2 and for frequencies from 0.13 THz to 3.3 THz was studied. This work shows that the photoresponse of all studied detectors increases linearly with increasing radiation intensity up to a few kW/cm2 range and is followed by the nonlinear and saturation parts for higher radiation intensities. This effect has led to the new model of broadband field-effect transistor detectors. The model is based on the phenomenological knowledge of the transistor static transfer characteristic and explains the photoresponse nonlinearity as related to non-linearity and saturation of the transistor channel current. The developed model explains consistently experimental data both in linear and nonlinear regions of terahertz detection.