Continuous terahertz sources demonstrated at room temperature

Continuous terahertz sources demonstrated at room temperature: They have developed the first room-temperature, compact, continuous terahertz radiation source, and it's six times more efficient than previous systems...

The team generated terahertz radiation through nonlinear frequency mixing of two mid-infrared wavelengths at 8.8 microns and 9.8 microns from a single QCL chip. Room temperature, continuous terahertz emission with 3 microwatts is realized in a monolithic nonlinear QCL device with a tiny packaging dimension (as small as 2x5x8 mm3). This is achieved by improving the thermal conductance with epilayer-down bonding and a buried ridge waveguide, as well as by decreasing the optical loss with a buried composite grating for stable, single mode operation.