A Nanostructured Long-Wave Infrared Range Thermocouple Detector

Author

Russer, Johannes A. ; Jirauschek, Christian ; Szakmany, Gergo P. ; Schmidt, Mark ; Orlov, Alexei O. ; Bernstein, Gary H. ; Porod, Wolfgang ; Lugli, Paolo ; Russer, Peter

Author_Institution

Inst. for Nanoelectron., Tech. Univ. Munchen, Munich, Germany

Volume

5

Issue

3

fYear

2015

fDate

May-15

Firstpage

335

Lastpage

343

Abstract

Infrared (IR) detectors for the long-wave infrared range (LWIR) based on nanostructured thermocouples exhibit response times in the order of picoseconds and will open new areas of applications in THz broadband communication systems. We show experimental evidence for a nonzero relative Seebeck coefficient between the narrow and the wide wire segments of single-material thermocouples, and we investigate the thermal dynamics of nano-thermocouples for a substrate heated by a nanostructured thermocouple patch. Due to its low thermal capacity a mesoscopic thermocouple is an extremely fast square-law detector with cutoff frequencies up to several hundred GHz.

Keywords

Seebeck effect; infrared detectors; nanosensors; nanostructured materials; thermocouples; cutoff frequencies; extremely fast square-law detector; mesoscopic thermocouple; nanostructured long-wave infrared range thermocouple detector; nanostructured thermocouple patch; nonzero relative Seebeck coefficient; response times; single-material thermocouples; terahertz broadband communication systems; thermal capacity; thermal dynamics; wire segments; Detectors; Heating; Junctions; Resistance; Schottky diodes; Temperature measurement; Voltage measurement; Heat conduction; Seebeck effect; THz detector; thermocouple;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Terahertz Science and Technology, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

2156-342X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TTHZ.2015.2418581

Filename

7086355