Biaobing Jin

Low loss and magnetic field-tunable superconducting terahertz metamaterial

Superconducting terahertz (THz) metamaterial (MM) made from niobium (Nb) film has been investigated using a continuous-wave THz spectroscopy. The quality factors of the resonance modes at 0.132 THz and 0.418 THz can be remarkably increased when the working temperature is below the superconducting transition temperature of Nb, indicating that the use of superconducting Nb is a possible way to achieve low loss performance of a THz MM. In addition, the tuning of superconducting THz MM by a magnetic field is also demonstrated, which offers an alternative tuning method apart from the existing electric, optical and thermal tuning methods.

Superconducting terahertz metamaterials mimicking electromagnetically induced transparency

We designed and fabricated planar terahertz (THz) metamaterials made from superconducting NbN films to mimic electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) system. They are characterized using THz time domain spectroscopy over a temperature range from 8 to 300 K. High transmittance and large delay-bandwidth product at transparency window are demonstrated, which mainly arise from the enhanced coupling and decreased damping in superconducting state. The EIT-like spectral response could be tuned in a wide frequency range. By applying two dark resonators with different resonance frequencies coupled with a radiative resonator, we experimentally demonstrated the planar metamaterials mimicking four-level EIT system.

Terahertz emission and detection both based on high-Tc superconductors: Towards an integrated receiver

We have combined a stand-alone Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 intrinsic Josephson junction stack, emitting terahertz radiation, with a YBa2Cu3O7 grain boundary Josephson junction acting as detector. The detector is mounted on a lens, positioned 1.2 cm away from the emitter on a similar lens. With the emitter radiating at 0.5 THz, we observed up to 7 Shapiro steps on the current-voltage characteristic of the detector. The ac current induced in this junction was 0.9 mA, and the dissipated power was 1.8 μW. The setup, although far from being optimized, may be considered as a first step towards an integrated high-Tc receiver.

Self-polarizing terahertz liquid crystal phase shifter

Using sub-wavelength metallic gratings as both transparent electrodes and broadband high-efficiency polarizers, a highly-compact self-polarizing phase shifter is demonstrated by electrically tuning the effective birefringence of a nematic liquid crystal cell. The metal grating polarizers ensure a good polarizing efficiency in the range of 0.2 to 2 THz. Phase shift of more than π/3 is achieved in a 256 μm-thick cell with a saturation root mean square voltage of around 130 V in this integrated device.

Large birefringence liquid crystal material in terahertz range

We develop a fluorinated phenyl-tolane based nematic mixture NJU-LDn-4 and evaluate its frequency-dependent birefringence utilizing terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). A large mean birefringence of 0.306 is obtained in a broad range from 0.4 to 1.6 THz, with a maximum of 0.314 at 1.6 THz. Furthermore, relation between molecular structures and birefringence property is discussed. This work reveals new insights for tailing liquid crystal molecules with desirable large birefringence in THz range, which is extremely meaningful for the design and fabrication of fast, compact and tunable terahertz devices.

High-frequency resonance in acoustic superlattice of periodically poledLiTaO3

An electric poling method has been used to prepare microstructured LiTaO3 crystals with periodically inverted-ferroelectric domains. By using these crystals as acoustic superlattices, both an “in-line” scheme and a “cross-field” scheme for acoustic excitation have been realized. The experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical analysis. It is expected that these results may be applied to a bulk-acoustic device operating at a frequency high above 450 MHz.

Tuning of superconducting niobium nitride terahertz metamaterials

Superconducting planar terahertz (THz) metamaterials (MMs), with unit cells of different sizes, are fabricated on 200 nm-thick niobium nitride (NbN) films deposited on MgO substrates. They are characterized using THz time domain spectroscopy over a temperature range from 8.1 K to 300 K, crossing the critical temperature of NbN films. As the gap frequency (f(g) = 2Δ0/h, where Δ0 is the energy gap at 0 K and h is the Plank constant) of NbN is 1.18 THz, the experimentally observed THz spectra span a frequency range from below f(g) to above it. We have found that, as the resonance frequency approaches f(g), the relative tuning range of MMs is quite wide (30%). We attribute this observation to the large change of kinetic inductance of superconducting film.

Terahertz nonlinear superconducting metamaterials

We investigate the nonlinear effect of a planar superconducting metamaterial made from niobium nitride (NbN) at terahertz frequencies. As the variation of the incident intense terahertz field alters the intrinsic conductivity in the NbN, a consequent giant amplitude modulation is observed due to the strong nonlinearities. The high sensitivity of the chosen metamaterial even allows observing the nonlinear behaviors at various temperatures, but the resonance modulation induced by the nonlinear effect was distinct from that induced by the heating effect. The presented results illustrate a clever implementation of strongly enhanced nonlinearities and thus may bring nonlinear metamaterials into novel applications.

Suppression of superconductivity in epitaxial NbN ultrathin films

This paper studies the suppression of superconducting transition temperature (T(c)) of ultrathin NbN film. We fabricated epitaxial NbN superconducting thin films of thicknesses ranging from 2.5 to 100 nm on single crystal MgO (100) substrates by dc magnetron sputtering. We performed structure analyses and measured their electric and far infrared properties. The experimental results were compared with several mechanisms of the suppression of superconductivity proposed in the literature, including the weak localization effect, the proximity effect, and quantum size effect (electron wave leakage model). We found that the electron wave leakage model matches best to the experimental data

Low-loss terahertz metamaterial from superconducting niobium nitride films

This paper reports a type of low Ohmic loss terahertz (THz) metamaterials made from low-temperature superconducting niobium nitride (NbN) films. Its resonance properties are studied by THz time domain spectroscopy. Our experiments show that its unloaded quality factor reaches as high as 178 at 8 K with the resonance frequency at around 0.58 THz, which is about 24 times that of gold metamaterial at the same temperature. The unloaded quality factor keeps at a high level, above 90, even when the resonance frequency increases to 1.02 THz, which is close to the gap frequency of NbN film. All these experimental observations fit well into the framework of Bardeen-Copper-Schrieffer theory and equivalent circuit model. These new metamaterials offer an efficient way to the design and implementation of high performance THz electronic devices.