X. G. Guo

Terahertz quantum well photodetectors with reflection-grating couplers

The design, fabrication, and characterization of terahertz (THz) quantum well photodetectors with one-dimensional reflection-grating coupler are presented. It is found that the reflection gratings could effectively couple the THz waves normally incident to the device. Compared with the 45-degree facet sample, the peak responsivity of this grating-coupled detector is enhanced by over 20%. The effects of the gratings on the photocurrent spectra are also analyzed.

Ultrafast population dynamics in electrically modulated terahertz quantum cascade lasers

The ultrafast population dynamics in electrically modulated three-well terahertz quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) is studied by using the self-consistent Bloch–Poisson equations. In the modulation process, the non-equilibrium oscillations of the population inversion are found before the population equilibrium recovers. The equilibrium formation time increases nonlinearly with the period number. This phenomenon stems from the non-uniform distribution of the electric potential. In different periods, different responses to the electrical modulation are also explored. An in-depth understanding of electron transport in the cascade structure is obtained. Finally, we demonstrate the feasibility of a modulation frequency up to gigahertz in terahertz QCLs.

Frequency Up-Conversion Photon-Type Terahertz Imager

Terahertz imaging has many important potential applications. Due to the failure of Si readout integrated circuits (ROICs) and the thermal mismatch between the photo-detector arrays and the ROICs at temperatures below 40 K, there are big technical challenges to construct terahertz photo-type focal plane arrays. In this work, we report pixel-less photo-type terahertz imagers based on the frequency up-conversion technique. The devices are composed of terahertz quantum-well photo-detectors (QWPs) and near-infrared (NIR) light emitting diodes (LEDs) which are grown in sequence on the same substrates using molecular beam epitaxy. In such an integrated QWP-LED device, photocurrent in the QWP drives the LED to emit NIR light. By optimizing the structural parameters of the QWP-LED, the QWP part and the LED part both work well. The maximum values of the internal and external energy up-conversion efficiencies are around 20% and 0.5%. A laser spot of a homemade terahertz quantum cascade laser is imaged by the QWP-LED together with a commercial Si camera. The pixel-less imaging results show that the image blurring induced by the transverse spreading of photocurrent is negligible. The demonstrated pixel-less imaging opens a new way to realize high performance terahertz imaging devices.

Optical-phonon-mediated photocurrent in terahertz quantum-well photodetectors

Strong and sharp photocurrent peak at longitudinal optical (LO) phonon frequency (8.87 THz) is found in GaAs/(Al,Ga)As terahertz quantum-well photodetectors (QWPs). Two mesa-structure terahertz QWPs with and without one-dimensional metal grating are fabricated to investigate the behavior of such photoresponse peak. The experimental and simulation results indicate that the photocurrent peak originates from a two-step process. First, at the LO phonon frequency, a large number of non-equilibrium LO phonons are excited by the incident electromagnetic field, and the electromagnetic energy is localized and enhanced in the thin multi-quantum-well layer. Second, through the Frohlich interaction, the localized electrons are excited to continuum states by absorbing the non-equilibrium LO phonons, which leads to the strong photoresponse peak. This finding is useful for exploring strong light-matter interaction and realizing high sensitive terahertz photodetectors.

Highly efficient tunable tapered-polymer-fiber lasers

A highly efficient tunable tapered-polymer-fiber (TPF) laser was demonstrated by use of a compound parabolic TPF doped with Rhodamine-6G (R6G) dye. The tuning ranges over 40 nm at the visible region for laser output with the maximum output energy of 600 mu J at 570 nm and the optical-optical conversion efficiency of 23% were achieved by a prism as a spectrally selective element. Moreover, the coupling efficiency for the taper exceeded 90%. Compared to traditional polymer fibers with a micrometer-size core diameter, the taper allows for a higher pump to be launched without damaging the fiber endfaces, and it can efficiently couple the light into the fiber and alleviate the alignment difficulty. So, the TPF laser not only possesses all of the advantages of traditional polymer-fiber lasers, and it can also obtain higher output energy and higher efficiency. Additionally, it is insensitive to geometrical displacements. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.

Multi-metastable states induced by the optical pump-probe process in terahertz quantum cascade lasers

The optical pump-probe process in terahertz quantum cascade lasers is studied theoretically by using the open system simulation method. The emitter injection is considered and the charge neutrality in the active region is broken. We find that nonequilibrium oscillations may appear in the recovery processes. In particular, the formation of different equilibrium values of the population change after the periodic pulse pumping is observed clearly. Here, the phenomenon of multi-metastable states stems from the electron regulation by the emitter injection. Finally, we discuss the important impacts of the equilibrium stabilization time and obtain an in-depth understanding of the emitter injection.