Facility For the Development and Characterization of New High-Performance Submillimeter Wave Lasers
Abstract
A facility for the development and characterization of submillimeter wave coherent sources (emitting from 100 GHz to a few THz) will be developed. It will enable major advances in this field such as new room-temperature sources and other devices such as modulators and receivers for important applications including chemical sensing and short-range communications in this underutilized frequency range. This facility will also support the effort of a new Army Research Office contract supporting the PI, aimed at developing a new type of sub-millimeter gas laser featuring compact room temperature operation, high brightness, broad tunability and much higher power than existing sources. A growing number of groups at Harvard have expressed interest in this frequency range for numerous applications. Students and postdocs from Harvard and other Universities will have access to this facility. The facility will include a set of characterization equipment in the sub-THz frequency range for spectrally characterizing devices and materials in the sub-THz range by extending the coverage of spectrum analyzers and optical spectrometers, calibrated power-meters, as well as low-power sub-THz sources for research such as pump-probe spectroscopy of rotational levels of gas molecules. It will also greatly augment existing imaging instruments by integrating them with the new sources with the goal of large-scale sample characterization in the sub-THz range and for probing the near- and far-field of sub-THz sources. The facility will include the required instrumentation for this integration. This facility will allow the following research to be performed at the PIÕs institution: I. The characterization (frequency and power) of sub-terahertz sources and the characterization (frequency response, efficiency) of antennas, modulators and receivers in this frequency range. II. The development of metasurfaces operating in the sub-THz range including lenses, polarizers, partially reflective surfaces and holograms. III. The extension of the operating range of a scattering- Scanning Near-field Optical Microscope (housed in HarvardÕs Center for Nanoscale Systems user facility) to sub-THz frequencies by developing a compact sub-THz source (quantum cascade laser pumped sub-THz gas laser). This will enable among other new research in the rapidly evolving field of 2D materials and the development of devices working in this frequency range.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jul 09, 2020
- Source ID
- W911NF2010157
Entities
People
- Federico Capasso
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Harvard University
- United States Army