Materials for optoelectronics IR and THz

Currently, components that emit and detect in very long wavelengths (30-300μm, or 1 to 10 THz-THz- range) are limited in terms of performance and operating temperature. Broad bandgap materials such as ZnO or GaN have particular properties offering tremendous unexplored potential to lift this technology lock.

A condition to achieve this goal is to master the growth of these materials without any crystalline defects. For example, on ZnO, we use massive substrates and a new growth reactor (MBE). For GaN, so-called 'semi-polar' orientations are developed within the laboratory.

Through these objectives of optoelectronic components, more fundamental approaches are approached in the field of infra-red and THz: plasmons, inter-subband polarons, inter-subband excitons physics, metamaterials, etc ...

More information and associated partners: European project FET-Open ZOTERAC (coordination: Jean-Michel Chauveau), ANR OPTOTERAGAN (Coordination: Yvon Cordier).

Recent realizations:

  1. Homoepitaxy of non-polar ZnO/(Zn, Mg) O multi-quantum wells: From a precise growth control to the observation of intersubband transitions, N Le Biavan et al. Applied Physics Letters 111 (23), 231903 (2017)
  2. Multisubband Plasmons in Doped Quantum Wells, MM Bajo, et al., Physical Review Applied 10 (2), 024005 (2018) –figure 1 left-
  3. Short infrared wavelength quantum cascade detectors based on m-plane ZnO/ZnMgO quantum wells, A. Jollivet et al, in press (2018) –figure 1 right-
Graphiques et photo du dipositif
Figure 1. Left (high): Dispersion relationship of multi-subband plasmons, white circles are experimental. (down) : Evolution of the phonon resonance with the electron density due to the coupling between multi-subband plasmons and phonons. Right: Photo-current spectrum for TM-polarizations and TE-polarized light of a 100x100 μm quantum cascade detector. In insert, an image is shown mesa optics.

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