• Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves
  • Vol. 34, Issue 6, 731 (2015)
GAO Ji-Hong*, JIA Jing-Yue, ZHANG Yue-Heng*, and SHEN Wen-Zhong
Author Affiliations
  • [in Chinese]
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    DOI: 10.11972/j.issn.1001-9014.2015.06.018 Cite this Article
    GAO Ji-Hong, JIA Jing-Yue, ZHANG Yue-Heng*, SHEN Wen-Zhong. Study on the performance and optimization of terahertz quantum-well photodetectors[J]. Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves, 2015, 34(6): 731 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    A newly designed terahertz quantum-well photodetector (THz QWP) sandwiched between GaAs and GaAs/Al0.04Ga0.96As material was demonstrated. Experimentally, we measure the response photocurrent spectra and the current-voltage curve and obtain the peak response of 6.78 THz and background-noise-limited performance (BLIP) temperature of 16 K. Theoretically, we investigated the many body effect to the band structure of THz QWP and calculate the peak response of 6.64 THz which is in agreement with the experiment. So, many-body effect must be included in the design of THz QWPs. Then, we calculate the BLIP temperature of 17.5 K which is fitted well with the measurement. However, the low BLIP temperature is the main factor limiting applications of THz QWPs; we propose two schemes to improve the operating temperatures. Firstly, a scheme using an optical antenna to increase the BLIP temperature is proposed. Calculation shows the device is expected to achieve BLIP at 76 K when employing a 106 enhancement antenna. The second scheme is to use a THz quantum cascade laser as signal source to achieve photon-noise-limited performance (PLIP) at high temperatures. Simulations show that when the illumination intensity reaches 0.01 mW/μm2, the operation temperature could be 77 K.
    GAO Ji-Hong, JIA Jing-Yue, ZHANG Yue-Heng*, SHEN Wen-Zhong. Study on the performance and optimization of terahertz quantum-well photodetectors[J]. Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves, 2015, 34(6): 731
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