High Power and Wideband Terahertz Modulator Using c-Axis Current Controlled Layered Superconductors

The possibility of applying stacks of capacitive and inductively coupled and synchronized Josephson junctions as either high radiation power or wideband current controlled terahertz modulator is proposed and investigated. The properties of such modulators, which can be fabricated using the mesa structure of the layered high-Tc superconductors, are obtained numerically and analytically in the presence and absence of the external magnetic field with different vortex lattices. Based on these analyses, the peak frequency deviation of modulated signal with respect to input signal is calculated. Typical spectrum of the radiated signal is also obtained in this approach. In addition, the variation of the peak frequency deviation with respect to carrier frequency for different magnetic configurations is obtained analytically. The results for these calculations show carrier frequencies from subtrahertz to multiterahertz.