Preparation of room temperature terahertz detector with lithium tantalate crystal and thin film

Research on room temperature terahertz (THz) detector is essential for promoting the application of THz science and technology. Both lithium tantalate crystal (LiTaO3) and lithium tantalate thin film were used to fabricate the THz detector in this paper. Polishing process were used to reduce the thickness of LiTaO3 crystal slice by chemical mechanical polishing techniques and an improved sol-gel process was used to obtain high concentration LiTaO3 precursor solution to fabricate LiTaO3 thin film. Three dimension models of two THz detectors were set up and the temperature increasing map of two devices were simulated using finite element method. The lowest noise equivalent power value for terahertz detector using pyroelectric material reaches 6.8 x 10(-9) W at 30 Hz operating frequency, which is suitable for THz imaging application. (C) 2014 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.