Devices and materials for THz spectroscopy: GHz CMOS circuits, periodic hole-arrays and high-frequency dielectric materials.

摘要

This dissertation is composed of three main projects, linked together by the THz region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In the first project, we detected the radiation from a silicon CMOS circuit, using a fourier transform interferometer. At the time of measurement, this 410 GHz circuit had the highest operating frequency for silicon integrated technology. The measured radiated power from the 410 GHz circuits was in the order of 0.01 muW. This circuit had radiated intensities comparable to those of commercially available black-body sources in the 400 GHz region. The high power and high emission per source area suggested possible spectroscopy applications.;We also studied the optical properties of periodic hole-arrays with resonant frequencies in the THz region. Although the transmittance spectra of these structures have been extensively studied, here we present reflectance measurements that allow the analysis of the extinction/absorption spectra. The results were compared to predictions from the trapped-mode theory on the ohmic losses of these systems. Our results did not support the prediction of a suppression of the R + T spectra at the resonant frequency. Also, we studied the time-dependence of femtosecond pulses reflected from periodic hole arrays with resonant frequencies in the NIR region. Our results show that if the trapped modes theory is correct, then the lifetime of these modes are below 100 fs.;Finally, in the third project, we studied the Raman active modes of various bismuth pyrochlores Bi3/2ZnNb3/2O7 (BZN), Bi3/2ZnTa3/2O7 (BZT), Bi3/2MgNb 3/2O7 (BMN) and Bi3/2MgTa3/2O 7 (BMT), which have earned recent attention for high-frequency applications. The spectra of the four compositions are very similar, suggesting no major structural differences among these materials. The spectra were compared to those of other pyrochlores and specific discussions are offered for the assignment of each mode. Although there are clear differences between the spectra of these samples compared to other pyrochlores, these differences can be explained by the appearance of additional modes due to the relaxation of the selection rules (caused by the displacive disorder in the Bi pyrochlores). Some additional modes had frequencies close to modes in the IR data, and others had frequencies close to optically inactive modes calculated by computational work in the literature. The additional modes were tentatively assigned by this comparison. Finally, the existence of additional modes in the Raman spectra of all four compounds suggests no difference in the amount of disorder among these samples. (Full text of this dissertation may be available via the University of Florida Libraries web site. Please check http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/etd.html)