Simon Sawallich

Electro-optic light modulation and THz generation in locally plasma-activated silicon nanophotonic devices

Silicon is not an electro-optic material by itself but the required second-order optical nonlinearity can be induced by breaking the inversion symmetry of the crystal lattice. Recently, an attractive approach has been demonstrated based on a surface-activation in a CMOS-compatible HBr dry etching process. In this work, we further investigate and quantify the second-order nonlinearity induced by this process. Using THz near-field probing we demonstrate that this simple and versatile process can be applied to locally equip silicon nanophotonic chips with micro-scale areas of electro-optic activity. The realization of a first fully integrated Mach-Zehnder modulator device - based on this process - is applied to quantify the nonlinearity to an effective χ((2)) of 9 ± 1 pm/V. Analysis of the thermal stability of the induced nonlinearity reveals post-processing limitations and paths for further efficiency improvements.

Photoconductive Terahertz Near-Field Detectors for Operation With 1550-nm Pulsed Fiber Lasers

We present a new generation of photoconductive (PC) terahertz (THz) near-field probes based on freestanding Beryllium-doped low-temperature-grown InGaAs/InAlAs cantilevers. The PC probes are compatible to optical gating with a femtosecond laser having a center wavelength of 1550 nm. Therefore, they are well suited for a cost-efficient direct integration with fiber-coupled THz time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) systems. The photoconductor material features electron lifetimes of 500 fs allowing for broadband detection up to 2 THz, which is comparable to existing LT-GaAs-based near-field detectors, which require 800-nm wavelength excitation. We demonstrate the detector operation in a state-of-the-art fiber-based TDS system with fast and coherent data acquisition and show obtained sheet-resistance mappings of conductive thin-films featuring subwavelength resolution.

Towards the Development of THz-Sensors for the Detection of African Trypanosomes

Abstract Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) for which adequate therapeutic and diagnostic measures are still lacking. Causative agent of HAT is the African trypanosome, a single-cell parasite, which propagates in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid of infected patients. Although different testing methods for the pathogen exist, none is robust, reliable and cost-efficient enough to support large-scale screening and control programs. Here we propose the design of a new sensor-type for the detection of infective-stage trypanosomes. The sensor exploits the highly selective binding capacity of nucleic acid aptamers to the surface of the parasite in combination with passive sensor structures to allow an electromagnetic remote read-out using terahertz (THz)-radiation. The short wavelength provides a superior interaction with the parasite cells than longer wavelengths, which is essential for a high sensitivity. We present two different sensor structures using both, micro- and nano-scale elements, as well as different measurement principles.