Multiple lateral photo-Dember terahertz emitters illuminated by a cylindrical micro-lens array

What is it about?

This paper explores a way of multiplexing current low-power LPD terahertz (THz) emitters to improve their THz output. This type of emitter (LPD) does not need an electrical supply to produce THz light making it very versatile, however, they only produce very low powers. By multiplexing them we effectively create many 'emitters' on a single device. This was done by manufacturing lots of gold strips on the surface of a semiconductor. Due to the nature of LPD emitters we would only see THz emission if one edge of each gold strip was illuminated with infrared laser light. To do this we focussed the laser light through an array of micro-lenses to produce lots of laser spots which we could align onto many gold edges. This produced over 5 times the power of a single LPD emitter.

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