Improvement of terahertz field effect transistor detectors by substrate thinning and radiation losses reduction.

Phenomena of the radiation coupling to the field effect transistors based terahertz (THz) detectors are studied. We show that in the case of planar metal antennas a significant portion of incoming radiation, instead of being coupled to the transistors, is coupled to an antenna substrate leading to responsivity losses and/or cross-talk effects in the field effect based THz detector arrays. Experimental and theoretical investigations of the responsivity versus substrate thickness are performed. They clearly show how to minimize the losses by the detector/ array substrate thinning. In conclusion simple quantitative rules of losses minimization by choosing a proper substrate thickness of field effect transistor THz detectors are presented for common materials (Si, GaAs, InP, GaN) used in semiconductor technologies.

Broadband terahertz imaging with highly sensitive silicon CMOS detectors.

This paper investigates terahertz detectors fabricated in a low-cost 130 nm silicon CMOS technology. We show that the detectors consisting of a nMOS field effect transistor as rectifying element and an integrated bow-tie coupling antenna achieve a record responsivity above 5 kV/W and a noise equivalent power below 10 pW/Hz(0.5) in the important atmospheric window around 300 GHz and at room temperature. We demonstrate furthermore that the same detectors are efficient for imaging in a very wide frequency range from ~0.27 THz up to 1.05 THz. These results pave the way towards high sensitivity focal plane arrays in silicon for terahertz imaging.

Nanotube transistors as direct probes of the trap dynamics at dielectric-organic interfaces of interest in organic electronics and solar cells.

The high sensitivity of nanotube transistors is used for the first time as a probe to study charge dynamics at a dielectric/polymer (polythiophene) interface, an inorganic/organic junction of particular importance for organic solar cells, and organic field effect transistors (OFETs). A carbon nanotube field effect transistor is coated with a thin film of a photoconductive polymer and photoexcited so as to generate carriers in the structure. Comparison between devices using SiO2 and TiO2 as gate dielectric reveals the critical role of the dielectric and clearly elucidates the relative contributions of the polymer and the dielectric layers on the separation, trapping, and relaxation of photogenerated charges.