Absolute terahertz power measurement of a time-domain spectroscopy system

We report on, to the best of our knowledge, the first absolute terahertz (THz) power measurement of a photoconductive emitter developed for time-domain spectroscopy (TDS). The broadband THz radiation emitted by a photoconductor optimized for the excitation with 1550-nm femtosecond pulses was measured by an ultrathin pyroelectric thin-film (UPTF) detector. We show that this detector has a spectrally flat transmission between 100 GHz and 5 THz due to special conductive electrodes on both sides of the UPTF. Its flat responsivity allows the calibration with a standard detector that is traceable to the International System of Units (SI) at the THz detector calibration facility of PTB. Absolute THz power in the range from below 1 mu W to above 0.1 mW was measured. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America