Terahertz emission mechanism and laser excitation position dependence of nano-grating electrode photomixers

The emission mechanism of continuous wave (CW) terahertz (THz) photomixers that make use of nanostructured gratings (NSGs) is studied. Two different photomixer designs, based on a single-sided NSG and a double-sided NSG, embedded in the same antenna design and fabricated on an Fe doped InGaAsP substrate, are characterized with ~1550 nm excitation. They are shown to exhibit similar performance in terms of spectral bandwidth and emitted power. The emission is mapped in terms of the laser excitation position, from which the emission mechanism is assigned to an enhanced optical electric field at the tips of the NSGs.