Nature Communications (Jul 2024)

Tamm-cavity terahertz detector

  • Xuecou Tu,
  • Yichen Zhang,
  • Shuyu Zhou,
  • Wenjing Tang,
  • Xu Yan,
  • Yunjie Rui,
  • Wohu Wang,
  • Bingnan Yan,
  • Chen Zhang,
  • Ziyao Ye,
  • Hongkai Shi,
  • Runfeng Su,
  • Chao Wan,
  • Daxing Dong,
  • Ruiying Xu,
  • Qing-Yuan Zhao,
  • La-Bao Zhang,
  • Xiao-Qing Jia,
  • Huabing Wang,
  • Lin Kang,
  • Jian Chen,
  • Peiheng Wu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49759-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

Read online

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.