A semiconductor-based terahertz-detector strategy, exploiting a bound-to-bound-to-continuum architecture, is presented and investigated. In particular, a ladder of equidistant energy levels is employed, whose step is tuned to the desired detection frequency and allows for sequential multi-photon absorption. Our theoretical analysis demonstrates that the proposed multi-subband scheme could represent a promising alternative to conventional quantum-well infrared photodetectors in the terahertz spectral region.
@article{arxiv.0810.0412,
title = {Sequential multi-photon strategy for semiconductor-based terahertz detectors},
author = {F. Castellano and R. C. Iotti and F. Rossi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0810.0412},
year = {2009}
}