Millimeter-wave narrow-gap uncooled hot-carrier detectors for active imaging

It is shown that electron heating by electromagnetic radiation in mercury-cadmium-telluride (MCT) layers can be used for designing of uncooled terahertz (THz)/sub-THz detectors with appropriate for active im- aging characteristics (noise equivalent power ∼2.6 × 10 −10 W∕Hz 1∕2 at ν ∼ 140 GHz) and these detectors can be manufactured within well estab- lished MCT technologies. This narrow-gap semiconductor can be consid- ered as a material for THz/sub-THz detectors with possibility to be assembled into arrays. The characteristics of those detectors can be con- trolled and improved by selection of parameters of initial layers, substrate properties, and antenna configuration. For field effect transistor detectors, even for transistors with rather long channels (∼1 μm), rather similar char- acteristics at ν ∼ 140 GHz can also be obtained. © 2013 Society of Photo-Optical