Terahertz wave switch using high resistivity silicon

摘要

In this letter, a new type of optically controllable, terahertz wave switch using high resistivity silicon wafer is developed. A high resistivity silicon is a lossless dielectric material at terahertz wave without optical excitation. When a silicon wafer is optically excited, free carriers are generated, and the silicon wafer becomes a lossy dielectric. We study theoretically and demonstrate experimentally light controllable terahertz wave of the high resistivity silicon wafers. The results show that a more than 15dB attenuation of the novel device is obtained at frequency of 0.3THz. The proposed structure is useful for developing low cost switch in the terahertz wave region.