Terahertz wave emission from an InGaAsN large area emitter

We present large-area emitters based on InGaAsN which show efficient THz emission for excitation wavelengths up to 1.35 μm.
The substrate material consists of a 1000 nm GayIn1-yAs1-xNx (y=0.11 and x=0.04) layer grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on semi-insulating GaAs. On top there is an additional GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As heterostructure with thicknesses of 5 nm for the GaAs and 60 nm for the AlGaAs layer, respectively. Transmission measurements with a Fourier spectrometer reveal a bandgap corresponding to a wavelength of 1.5 μm. The resistance of a complete device with an active area of 1 mm2 is 0.3 MΩ. This allows operation with high bias fields (30 kV/cm) without being limited by heating. For excitation an optical parametric oscillator (OPO), tunable between 1.1 μm and 1.5 μm, is used. The pulse duration is 280 fs (FWHM). The THz signal is detected using electro-optical sampling with a 1 mm thick ZnTe crystal. The gating beam (λ = 820 nm) for detection is split off from a Ti:sapphire oscillator which drives the OPO.