An analysis of semiconductor waveguides with strip-shaped plasma and their applications
Abstract
When a high-resistivity semiconductor is used as a waveguide medium which is illuminated optically so that the electron-hole plasma is excited, its permittivity changes and the control of the propagation characteristics of the millimeter-wave becomes possible. This paper studies the effect of the plasma layer width on the propagation characteristics in a waveguide with plasma induced on the grounded semiconductor slab. The hybrid guided mode was analyzed by means of the mode matching method. It is found that the attenuation of the wave increases as the plasma layer width is decreased if the plasma density per unit area is more than 1017.5 m−2. Further, the obtained results were extended and the characteristics of an optically controlled coupler made of dielectric waveguides were analyzed.