Publication Date
2016
Document Type
Thesis
Committee Members
Jerry Clark (Committee Member), Jason Deibel (Advisor), Gregory Kozlowski (Committee Member)
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Abstract
Terahertz radiation is invaluable for use in spectroscopy and imaging work due to its nondestructive nature. It has become a key focus for those wishing to develop sensors capable of detecting weapons and narcotics unobtrusively and at a distance as well as characterizing materials and identifying defects. An ultrafast pulsed (femtoseconds) laser incident on a superconducting ring has been predicted to cause the emission of terahertz (THz) radiation. It is theorized that the radiation is a result of the supercurrent being modulated by the breaking and recombining of Cooper pairs on the order of picoseconds, where the time scale determines the frequency of the emitted radiation. We propose to investigate the terahertz emission from Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) superconducting ring arrays of various geometries. Specifically, we will investigate the dependence of the time dynamics of the terahertz radiation, the ultrafast femtosecond laser pump power dependence and time dynamics, the antenna geometry, and the efficiency of the system. The theoretical work completed thus far anticipates high power and bandwidth in the terahertz regime. Furthermore, a complete characterization of the emitted radiation will provide insight into the microscopic properties of the superconductor's supercarriers. To realize the experimental testing of the superconducting ring arrays, a time-domain terahertz emission spectroscopy system will be designed and tested with known terahertz source materials.
Page Count
69
Department or Program
Department of Physics
Year Degree Awarded
2016
Copyright
Copyright 2016, some rights reserved. My ETD may be copied and distributed only for non-commercial purposes and may not be modified. All use must give me credit as the original author.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
