Tamm-cavity terahertz detector

Nat Commun. 2024 Jul 2;15(1):5542. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-49759-z.

Authors

Xuecou Tu^{1

2}, Yichen Zhang³, Shuyu Zhou³, Wenjing Tang³, Xu Yan³, Yunjie Rui³, Wohu Wang³, Bingnan Yan³, Chen Zhang³, Ziyao Ye³, Hongkai Shi³, Runfeng Su³, Chao Wan⁴, Daxing Dong⁵, Ruiying Xu⁶, Qing-Yuan Zhao^{3

4}, La-Bao Zhang^{3

7}, Xiao-Qing Jia^{3

7}, Huabing Wang^{3

4}, Lin Kang^{8

9}, Jian Chen^{3

4}, Peiheng Wu^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Research Institute of Superconductor Electronics (RISE), School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210023, China. tuxuecou@nju.edu.cn.
² Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei, 230088, China. tuxuecou@nju.edu.cn.
³ Research Institute of Superconductor Electronics (RISE), School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210023, China.
⁴ Purple Mountain Laboratories, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211111, China.
⁵ Department of Applied Physics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China.
⁶ Nanjing Electronic Devices Institute, Nanjing, 210016, China.
⁷ Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei, 230088, China.
⁸ Research Institute of Superconductor Electronics (RISE), School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210023, China. kanglin@nju.edu.cn.
⁹ Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei, 230088, China. kanglin@nju.edu.cn.
¹⁰ Research Institute of Superconductor Electronics (RISE), School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210023, China. phwu@nju.edu.cn.
¹¹ Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei, 230088, China. phwu@nju.edu.cn.

Abstract

Efficiently fabricating a cavity that can achieve strong interactions between terahertz waves and matter would allow researchers to exploit the intrinsic properties due to the long wavelength in the terahertz waveband. Here we show a terahertz detector embedded in a Tamm cavity with a record Q value of 1017 and a bandwidth of only 469 MHz for direct detection. The Tamm-cavity detector is formed by embedding a substrate with an Nb₅N₆ microbolometer detector between an Si/air distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) and a metal reflector. The resonant frequency can be controlled by adjusting the thickness of the substrate layer. The detector and DBR are fabricated separately, and a large pixel-array detector can be realized by a very simple assembly process. This versatile cavity structure can be used as a platform for preparing high-performance terahertz devices and opening up the study of the strong interactions between terahertz waves and matter.

Abstract

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