Quasi-1D Electronic Metadevices with Enhanced Electrical Properties

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that quasi-1D electronic metadevices with reduced subwavelength features exhibit enhanced electrical properties, including higher contact resistance and improved switching performance, validated through experimental results.

Contribution

First experimental demonstration of a quasi-1D electronic metadevice governed by a 1D model, showing enhanced electrical performance due to feature size reduction.

Findings

Higher-than-expected contact resistance observed with downscaled features

Experimental validation of a quasi-1D model for metadevices

Potential for improved telecommunication switch applications

Abstract

Electronic metadevices leveraging sub-wavelength metallic features have shown great potential for high-frequency switching. Theoretical analysis based on a one-dimensional (1D) model indicates that reducing the size of subwavelength features can enhance electrical properties, such as contact resistance and switching cutoff frequency. Here, we report higher-than-expected contact resistance in electronic metadevices when the subwavelength feature size is aggressively downscaled. We attribute this effect to transverse currents in the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) running parallel to the stripe width. We present the first experimental demonstration of a metadevice governed by a one-dimensional model, which we refer to as a quasi-1D electronic metadevice and show that it enables enhanced electrical performance. Our findings pave the way to design next generation electronic metadevice switches with applications in future telecommunication circuits.