The mesoscopic magnetron as an open quantum system

Abstract

Motivated by the emergence of materials with mean free paths on the order of microns, we propose a novel class of solid state radiation sources based on reimplementing classical vacuum tube designs in semiconductors. Using materials with small effective masses, these devices should be able to access the terahertz range. We analyze the DC and AC operation of the simplest such device, the cylindrical diode magnetron, using effective quantum models. By treating the magnetron as an open quantum system, we show that it continues to operate as a radiation source even if its diameter is only a few tens of magnetic lengths.