Single-walled carbon nanotubes as base material for THz photoconductive switching: a theoretical study from input power to output THz emission

• Published in: Optics express Vol. 19; no. 16; p. 15077
• Main Authors: Heshmat, Barmak, Pahlevaninezhad, Hamid, Beard, Matthew Craig, Papadopoulos, Chris, Darcie, Thomas Edward
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Optical Society of America (OSA) 01.08.2011
• Subjects: Carbon - chemistry; Equipment Design; Hot Temperature; Light; Materials Testing; Models, Statistical; NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY; Nanotechnology - methods; Nanotubes, Carbon - chemistry; nonomaterials; Optics and Photonics; photoconductivity; Semiconductors; single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT); SOLAR ENERGY; Terahertz Spectroscopy - methods; Time Factors
• ISSN: 1094-4087; 1094-4087
• DOI: 10.1364/OE.19.015077

This paper studies the relation between photoexcitation of a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) based device, and its THz output power in the context of THz photoconductive (PC) switching and THz photomixing. A detailed approach of calculating output THz power for such a device describes the effect of each parameter on the performance of the THz PC switch and highlights the design dependent achievable limits. A numerical assessment, with typical values for each parameter, shows that-subject to thermal stability of the device-SWNT based PC switch can improve the output power by almost two orders of magnitudes compared to conventional materials such as LT-GaAs.