Quantum-cascade (QC) detectors are photovoltaic infrared detectors that exhibit low-noise characteristics dominated by the Johnson–Nyquist noise owing to the absence of fluctuations brought on by an external operation bias. When the Johnson–Nyquist noise level is low (at high device resistances), the flicker noise cannot be ignored in the lower-frequency region. However, the flicker noise seen in QC detectors has not been sufficiently discussed, and only the Johnson–Nyquist noise has been considered. In this study, we carried out flicker-noise analysis for mid-infrared QC detectors with a response wavelength of approximately 4.5 μm using experimental and theoretical approaches. The theoretical predictions, which were based on fluctuating charge-dipoles caused by electron trappings and de-trappings at impurity states, showed qualitative agreement with the measured temperature and device size dependencies of the flicker noise. Because doping of impurities into the absorption well is essential for detector operation, the results suggest that flicker noise is unavoidable in QC detectors. Therefore, to achieve the best low-noise performance of QC detectors, it is important to understand how flicker noise behaves in QC detectors using a theoretical model that considers the experimental results.
We discuss the design of gratings that extract THz waves from the surface of quantum cascade lasers, in which the THz wave is generated by difference-frequency generation with Cerenkov phase-matching. The grating is a type of highcontrast- grating (HCG), which has been shown to be a good element of meta-surfaces. Although bare HCGs monolithically fabricated on the semiconductor do not work well, we found that the efficiency is increased to 34% in 1st order grating, 43% in 2nd order grating, and 75% in sub-1st order grating, by capping the ridge of the grating and the bottom of the groove by a metal layer.
We present our systematic experimental study on the responsivity to THz wave and the noise in the photoconductive antennas made on low-temperature-grown (LTG) GaAs. In particular, we show that both depend on the properties of the LTG GaAs and the type of the metallization. On the basis of the results, we will discuss a device model in a manner independent of the details of the device fabrication to facilitate the standardized description.
We report the observation of exciton blue shift in a DC- biased GaAS single quantum well with off-resonant pumping which is distinguished from the ac Stark shift by polarization selective pump probe spectroscopy with small detuning condition. This blue shift is interpreted as a result of internal field screening by virtual excitons.
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