A fast, voltage-tunable terahertz mixer based on the intersubband transition of a high-mobility 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) has been fabricated from a single 40 nm GaAs-AlGaAs square quantum well heterostructure. The device is called a Tunable Antenna-Coupled Intersubband Terahertz (TACIT) mixer, and shows tunability of the detection frequency from 2.52 THz to 3.11 THz with small (< 1 V) top gate and back gate voltage biases. Mixing at 2.52 THz has been observed at 60 K with a -3dB intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth exceeding 6 GHz.
While single-pixel superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) have demonstrated remarkable efficiency and timing performance from the UV to near-IR, scaling these devices to large imaging arrays remains challenging. Here, we propose a new SNSPD multiplexing system using thermal coupling and detection correlations between two photosensitive layers of an array. Using this architecture with the channels of one layer oriented in rows and the second layer in columns, we demonstrate imaging capability in 16-pixel arrays with accurate spot tracking at the few photon level. We also explore the performance tradeoffs of orienting the top layer nanowires parallel and perpendicular to the bottom layer. The thermally-coupled row-column scheme is readily able to scale to the kilopixel size with existing readout systems, and when combined with other multiplexing architectures, has the potential to enable megapixel scale SNSPD imaging arrays.
We present a quantum model to calculate the dipole-dipole coupling between electronic excitations in the conduction band of semiconductor quantum wells. We demonstrate that the coupling depends on a characteristic length, related to the overlap between microscopic current densities associated with each electronic excitation. As a result of the coupling, a macroscopic polarization is established in the quantum wells, corresponding to one or few bright collective modes of the electron gas. Our model is applied to derive a sum rule and to investigate the interplay between tunnel coupling and Coulomb interaction in the absorption spectrum of a dense electron gas.
We have developed a method to characterize the spectral response of an uncooled microbolometer focal plane array at a broad range of terahertz (THz) frequencies (4~50 THz). This is achieved by using a spectrum-tailored blackbody radiator as a broadband THz source and measuring its spectral power with a Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) interferometer. With an additional measurement with a pyroelectric detector as a reference, the spectral response of the microbolometer relative to the pyroelectric reference is obtained with a signal-to-noise ratio of 100 over a >50 THz bandwidth.
TES-based bolometer and microcalorimeter arrays with thousands of pixels are under development for several space-based and ground-based applications. A linear detector response and low levels of cross talk facilitate the calibration of the instruments. In an effort to improve the properties of TES-based detectors, fixing the TES resistance in a resistance-locked loop (RLL) under optical loading has recently been proposed. Earlier theoretical work on this mode of operation has shown that the detector speed, linearity and dynamic range should improve with respect to voltage biased operation. This paper presents an experimental demonstration of multiplexed readout in this mode of operation in a TES-based detector array with noise equivalent power values (NEP) of $3.5cdot 10^{-19} $W/$sqrt{mathrm{Hz}}$. The measured noise and dynamic properties of the detector in the RLL will be compared with the earlier modelling work. Furthermore, the practical implementation routes for future FDM systems for the readout of bolometer and microcalorimeter arrays will be discussed.
A high temperature superconducting detector was fabricated to capture the thermal images in room temperature background. The detector was made of YBa2Cu3O7-{delta} (YBCO) superconducting thin film deposited on an Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) substrate, structurally modified for high responsivity performance. A very thin absorber layer was implemented on the backside of the detector to increase the absorption of the device at infrared (IR) range of frequencies. To capture thermal images, a movable off-axis parabolic mirror on XY plane was used for focusing the incoming IR radiation including the thermal signal of the objects onto the device surface. The captured thermal images belong to the objects within the temperature range between 300K and 400K, which correspond to our imaging optics.