Principles of THz Direct Detection
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-24-2015
Abstract
This is a comprehensive review of the physical principles and engineering techniques associated with contemporary room-temperature THz direct detectors. It starts with the basic detection mechanisms: rectification, bolometric, pyroelectric, and plasma wave. It then addresses the noise mechanisms using both classical and quantum principles, and the THz coupling using impedance-matching and antenna-feed considerations. Fundamental analyses are provided of the noise mechanisms because of a lack of coverage in the popular literature. All THz detectors can then be described with a common performance formalism based on two metrics: noise-equivalent power (NEP) and noise-equivalent temperature difference (NETD). The chapter concludes with a comparison of the best room-temperature THz detector experimental results to date above ∼300 GHz, and suggests that none of these detector types are operating very close to fundamental theoretical limits, so there is room for significant performance advances.
Repository Citation
Brown, E.,
& Segovia-Vargas, D.
(2015). Principles of THz Direct Detection. Semiconductor THz Technology: Devices and Systems at Room Temperature Operation, 212-253.
https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/physics/1104
DOI
10.1002/9781118920411.ch5
