This paper shows the relevance of mobility models to describe the car-
rier dynamics for the analysis of radiative semiconductor photoconductive devices
in the terahertz regime. We have built a simulator that self-consistently solves the
device physics and Maxwell’s equations to study the radiated fields. In particu-
lar, we show a significant influence of an accurate description of the steady-state
regime of the semiconductor device for calculating radiated electromagnetic fields
in the broadside direction. Comparison with measurements shows the accuracy of
our simulator and demonstrates the superior performance of numerical schemes
based not only on the description of the carrier, electric potential, and field dis-
tributions, but also on reliable local mobility models.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Educa-
tion under Project CSD2008-00068, the Junta de Andalucia Project P09-TIC-5327, the EU
FP7/2007-2013, under grant 205294 (HIRF-SE project), and the Spanish National Project
TEC2010-20841-C04-04