Carbon Irradiated SI-GaAs for Photoconductive THz Detection

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that carbon irradiation significantly reduces the carrier lifetime of semi-insulating GaAs, enhancing its effectiveness for terahertz pulse detection in photoconductive applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of using carbon ion irradiation to create ultra-fast carrier lifetime in SI-GaAs for improved THz detection.

Findings

Carrier lifetime reduced to 0.55 ps with increased C12 dose.

Enhanced THz pulse detection performance observed.

Irradiation dose correlates with carrier lifetime reduction.

Abstract

We report here a photoconductive material for THz generation and detection with sub-picosecond carrier lifetime made by C12 (Carbon) irradiation on commercially available semi-insulating (SI) GaAs. We are able to reduce the carrier lifetime of SI-GaAs down to sub-picosecond by irradiating it with various irradiation dosages of Carbon (C12) ions. With an increase of the irradiation dose from ~1012 /cm2 to ~1015 /cm2 the carrier lifetime of SI-GaAs monotonously decreases to 0.55 picosecond, resulting in strongly improved THz pulse detection compared with normal SI-GaAs.