Characterization of Highly Doped Si Through the Excitation of THz Surface Plasmons

We excite surface plasmons (SPs) at the surface of highly doped Si using a prism coupler, and we study the propagation properties of these SPs in order to characterize the terahertz (THz) response of the doped semiconductor. Thanks to the long interaction length of the propagating SP with the substrate material, the method is more sensitive than classical THz time-domain spectroscopy in reflection or in transmission. Moreover, we propose a new technique based on measuring the SP signal, for which the delicate problem of accurately measuring the phase of the signal is solved. All of these different experiment techniques allow us to determine reliably the dielectric function of highly doped Si in the THz range. It appears that the experimentally determined values differ strongly from the ones calculated with a Drude model.