We present a terahertz (THz) photoconductive emitter structure, which employs a n-doped layer underneath a low-temperature-grown GaAs region to enable the THz transient to couple vertically through a defined mesa. A nonlinear bias dependence is observed, yielding an order in magnitude improvement in power for a mesa device with a 100 μm2 area over a conventional planar control reference device at 32 V and 5 mW illumination power. We relate the bias dependence of the THz signal to the breakdown voltage observed in the current-voltage characteristic. Reducing the antenna gap size through reducing the thickness of the low temperature-GaAs region below 1 μm shows a large improvement in the bandwidth of the device, with an enhancement of the normalized intensity between 0.2 to 2 THz for a bow-tie antenna geometry.

We report the use of a multilayered structure comprising of alternating layers of low temperature grown GaAs and high temperature grown AlAs, as a terahertz (THz) photoconductive antenna emitter and receiver. Devices based on 10×10 μm2 mesa defined photoconductive gaps were fabricated on the multilayered structure, and a comparison made to conventional planar devices. The mesa defined photoconductive antennas allowed successive contact through the multilayered structure, which resulted in an increase in THz emission power and detection responsivity with increasing number of layers in contact with the antenna electrodes. A comparison with a conventional single layered device, processed in an identical mesa geometry, confirmed that the enhancement in THz emission is solely due to the multilayered nature of the device, whereas the improved receiver performance can be partially attributed to the mesa geometry.

We propose and simulate a novel terahertz QCL design based on a new depopulation mechanism which relies on resonant Γ–X electron transfer. The ultrafast scattering rates between Γ- and X-valley states is used to depopulate the lower laser level in a modified GaAs/AlGaAs THz QCL structure. The new QCL design is realised by increasing the Al content of the collection barrier to bring a confined X-state in resonance with the lower laser level. Our results show that under such conditions population inversion can be achieved between the two lasing states. Furthermore, the new design may achieve improved temperature operation compared to existing designs.

We present a study on quasibound states in multiple quantum well structures using a finite element model (FEM). The FEM is implemented for solving the effective mass Schrödinger equation in arbitrary layered semiconductor nanostructures with an arbitrary applied potential. The model also includes nonparabolicity effects by using an energy dependent effective mass, where the resulting nonlinear eigenvalue problem was solved using an iterative approach. We focus on quasibound/continuum states above the barrier potential and show that such states can be determined using cyclic boundary conditions. This new method enables the determination of both bound and quasibound states simultaneously, making it more efficient than other methods where different boundary conditions have to be used in extracting the relevant states. Furthermore, the new method lifted the problem of quasibound state divergence commonly seen with many other methods of calculation. Hence enabling accurate determination of dipole matrix elements involving both bound and quasibound states. Such calculations are vital in the design of intersubband optoelectronic devices and reveal the interesting properties of quasibound states above the potential barriers.

We present a study into the properties of terahertz (THz) emission and detection using low temperature grown GaAs photoconductive switches over a range of ex situ anneal temperatures. Our analysis focuses on the effect of defect saturation, which has been confirmed in many experiments. However its effect on the THz emission and detection has so far not been fully investigated. In this letter, we examine the dependence of the radiated THz pulse width (full width at half maximum) upon optical power, and show that the differences in the characteristics with annealing can be theoretically accounted for when defect saturation is taken into account. Defect saturation was found to substantially increase the trapping time of photoexcited electrons, which in turn can cause THz pulse broadening at high optical powers. This effect was found to increase with anneal temperature due to the decrease in defect density. The radiated peak THz amplitude from emitters increases monotonically with increasing optical power across the range of anneal temperatures investigated. In the detector configuration, however, the detected peak THz amplitude reaches a maximum before starting to decrease with increasing optical power. The latter trend was observed for devices annealed at temperatures higher than 300 °C and is attributed to the onset of defect saturation.