Ion-Implanted GeSn Terahertz Photoconductive Antenna on Silicon

In this work, we demonstrated a phosphorus implanted Ge
0.96
Sn
0.04
photoconductive antenna (PCA) on Silicon for terahertz (THz) generation. The Ge
0.96
Sn
0.4
layer processed by mature ion implantation was grown on an 8-inch Si wafer through commercially available reduced-pressure chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD), demonstrating a low-cost, mass-producible, and complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible THz PCA prototype. As a result, the Ge
0.96
Sn
0.04
PCA achieved a bandwidth over 1.5 THz with 60 dB of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) under a bias voltage of 25 V and optical pump of 155 mW. This work demonstrates that mature ion implantation can be a feasible approach to efficiently modulate the carrier lifetime of group IV photoconductive material to ps level, which indicates that phosphorus implanted Ge
0.96
Sn
0.04
THz PCA can potentially operate as a detector, paving the way toward the THz system integration on Si platform.