Current responsivity of semiconductor superlattice THz-photon detectors

Abstract

The current responsivity of a semiconductor superlattice THz-photon detector is calculated using an equivalent circuit model which takes into account the finite matching efficiency between a detector antenna and the superlattice in the presence of parasitic losses. Calculations performed for currently available superlattice diodes show that both the magnitudes and the roll-off frequencies of the responsivity are strongly influenced by an excitation of hybrid plasma-Bloch oscillations which are found to be eigenmodes of the system in the THz- frequency band. The expected room temperature values of the responsivity (2-3 A/W in the 1-3 THz-frequency band) range up to several percents of the quantum efficiency $e/\hslash \omega$ of an ideal superconductor tunnel junction detector. Properly designed semiconductor superlattice detectors may thus demonstrate better room temperature THz-photon responsivity than conventional Schottky junction devices.

Revtex file, uses epsf, 11 pages. 11 eps-figures; EPS-files generated by scanner, original higher resolution line drawings available from [email protected] by regular mail or fax

References in corpus (5)

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• Spontaneous DC Current Generation in a Resistively Shunted Semiconductor Superlattice Driven by a TeraHertz Field
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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Semiconductor Superlattices: A model system for nonlinear transport
• High-frequency absorption and gain in superlattices: Semiquasistatic approach
• High-Frequency Impedance of Driven Superlattices
• Excitation of relaxation oscillations in a semiconductor superlattice by incident waves: efficient terahertz harmonics generation
• The non-linear terahertz response of hot electrons in low-dimensional semiconductor superlattices: Suppression of the polar-optical phonon scattering
• Rectification of THz-radiation in semiconductor superlattices in the absence of domains
• Transport in semiconductor superlattices: from quantum kinetics to terahertz-photon detectors