Photoconductive terahertz receivers utilizing single semiconductor nanowires

We have demonstrated phase sensitive detectors of coherent terahertz radiation that use single nanowires as active elements. The single GaAs/AlGaAs nanowires acted as sensitive photoconductive elements within a gold antenna structure on quartz. The detectors were also implemented in a terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) system. Our devices show great promise as near-field terahertz sensors or as components for on-chip terahertz micro-spectrometers.