High temperature metamaterial terahertz quantum detector

We demonstrate a high-temperature performance quantum detector of Terahertz (THz) radiation based on three-dimensional metamaterial. The metamaterial unit cell consists of an inductor-capacitor (LC) resonator laterally coupled with antenna elements. The absorbing region, consisting of semiconductor quantum wells, is contained in the strongly ultra-subwavelength capacitors of the LC structure. The high radiation loss of the antenna allows strongly increased collection efficiency for the incident THz radiation, while the small effective volume of the LC resonator allows intense light-matter coupling with a reduced electrical area. As a result, our detectors operate at much higher temperatures than conventional quantum well detectors demonstrated so far.

This work was supported by the French National Research Agency under Contract No. ANR-16-CE24-0020, the regional DIM-SIRTEQ project, “CIEL,” Project Qombs (FET Flagship on Quantum Technologies Grant No. 820419) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK) under Grant No. EP/P021859/1. EHL acknowledges the support of the Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation.