Abstract-Broadband Terahertz Generation and Detection at 10 nm Scale

Yanjun Ma †, Mengchen Huang †, Sangwoo Ryu ‡, Chung Wung Bark ‡, Chang-Beom Eom ‡, Patrick Irvin †, and Jeremy Levy *†

^† Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, United States

^‡ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, United States

Nano Lett., 2013, 13 (6), pp 2884–2888

DOI: 10.1021/nl401219v

Publication Date (Web): May 21, 2013

Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society

*E-mail: jlevy@pitt.edu.

Terahertz (0.1–30 THz) radiation reveals a wealth of information that is relevant for material, biological, and medical sciences with applications that span chemical sensing, high-speed electronics, and coherent control of semiconductor quantum bits. To date, there have been no methods capable of controlling terahertz (THz) radiation at molecular scales. Here we report both generation and detection of broadband terahertz field from 10 nm scale oxide nanojunctions. Frequency components of ultrafast optical radiation are mixed at these nanojunctions, producing broadband THz emission. These same devices detect THz electric fields with comparable spatial resolution. This unprecedented control, on a scale of 4 orders of magnitude smaller than the diffraction limit, creates a pathway toward THz-bandwidth spectroscopy and control of individual nanoparticles and molecules