Two-photon quantum well photodetectors for the THz regime

Two-photon quantum-well photodetector devices designed for transition energies corresponding to 3 – 6 THz have been realized and intersubband energies were verified by photocurrent spectroscopy. Super-linear but not ideally quadratic behavior has been demonstrated by interferometric autocorrelation experiments using narrow-band terahertz pulses from the free-electron laser FELBE. With decreasing operation frequency, detector operation is progressively limited to low applied fields because of pronounced breakdown phenomena of the conductivity. This work has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, project number SCHN 1127/2-1.