We present a high-power and broadband photoconductive terahertz emitter operating at telecommunication optical wavelengths, at which compact and high-performance fiber lasers are commercially available. The presented terahertz emitter utilizes an ErAs:InGaAs substrate to achieve high resistivity and short carrier lifetime characteristics required for robust operation at telecommunication optical wavelengths. It also uses a two-dimensional array of plasmonic nano-antennas to offer significantly higher optical-to-terahertz conversion efficiencies compared to the conventional photoconductive emitters, while maintaining broad operation bandwidths. We experimentally demonstrate pulsed terahertz radiation over 0.1-5 THz frequency range with the power levels as high as 300 lW. This is the highest-reported terahertz radiation power from a photoconductive emitter operating at telecommunication optical wavelengths. Published by AIP Publishing. Photoconductive emitters are widely used for generating sub-picosecond pulses in the time-domain terahertz imaging and spectroscopy systems.1-6 Telecommunication wavelengths (e.g., 1550 nm) are one of the most desired regimes for pumping photoconductive emitters due to the availability of high-performance, low-cost and compact fiber lasers. 7,8 However, the performance of previously demonstrated photoconductive terahertz emitters operating at telecommunication wavelengths has been limited by low resistivity of photo-absorbing semiconductor substrates at these wavelengths (e.g., InGaAs). This is because efficient operation of photoconductive terahertz emitters requires accelerating photo-generated carriers by high bias electric fields, which results in high dark currents and thermal breakdown when using low resistivity substrates.Various different techniques have been proposed to overcome the low resistivity limitation of photo-absorbing substrates at telecommunication wavelengths.9-12 One of the most promising solutions is the use of a superlattice of monolayers of ErAs in an InGaAs substrate. Since the ErAs layers act as deep recombination centers inside the superlattice, the resistivity and carrier lifetime of such superlattice structures can be controlled by the number and thickness of ErAs layers. [13][14][15][16] Although the high resistivity and short carrier lifetime characteristics of ErAs:InGaAs substrates can enable a more reliable device operation at telecommunication wavelengths, the radiation power of previously demonstrated ErAs:InGaAs photoconductive terahertz emitters operating at 1550 nm pump wavelengths has been limited by low quantum efficiency of conventional ultrafast photoconductors.In this work, we present a large-area photoconductive terahertz emitter based on a two-dimensional array of plasmonic nano-antennas fabricated on an ErAs:InGaAs substrate. The use of plasmonic nano-antennas allows absorption and concentration of the majority of incident pump photons in close proximity to the nano-antennas. As a result, most of the photo-generated carriers drift to t...