Narrowband Thermal Terahertz Emission from Homoepitaxial GaAs Structures Coupled with Ti/Au Metasurface

Abstract

We report on the experimental evidence of thermal terahertz (THz) emission tailored by magnetic polariton (MP) excitations in entirely GaAs-based structures equipped with metasurfaces. The n-GaAs/GaAs/TiAu structure was optimized using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations for the resonant MP excitations in the frequency range below 2 THz. Molecular beam epitaxy was used to grow the GaAs layer on the n-GaAs substrate, and a metasurface, comprising periodic TiAu squares, was formed on the top surface using UV laser lithography. The structures exhibited resonant reflectivity dips at room temperature and emissivity peaks at T=390 °C in the range from 0.7 THz to 1.3 THz, depending on the size of the square metacells. In addition, the excitations of the third harmonic were observed. The bandwidth was measured as narrow as 0.19 THz of the resonant emission line at 0.71 THz for a 42 μm metacell side length. An equivalent LC circuit model was used to describe the spectral positions of MP resonances analytically. Good agreement was achieved among the results of simulations, room temperature reflection measurements, thermal emission experiments, and equivalent LC circuit model calculations. Thermal emitters are mostly produced using a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) stack, whereas our proposed employment of n-GaAs substrate instead of metal film allows us to integrate the emitter with other GaAs optoelectronic devices. The MP resonance quality factors obtained at elevated temperatures (Q≈3.3to5.2) are very similar to those of MIM structures as well as to 2D plasmon resonance quality at cryogenic temperatures.