# US 10,119,860 B2 · Method for calibrating absolute responsivity of terahertz quantum well detector and device thereof

> Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt

- Number: US 10,119,860 B2
- Document ID: US10119860B2
- Status: Granted
- Kind: B2
- Application number: 15/121,520
- Filed: 2014-04-30
- Published: 2018-08-02
- Granted: 2018-11-06
- Earliest claimed: 2014-02-26
- Assignees: Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Applicants: Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Inventors: Zhiyong Tan; Juncheng Cao; Li Gu; Yonghao Zhu
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US10119860B2

## CPC

- G01J 1/4257: {applied to monitoring the characteristics of a beam, e.g. laser beam, headlamp beam (monitoring arrangements for lasers in general H01S3/0014)}
- G01J 1/08: Arrangements of light sources specially adapted for photometry {standard sources, also using luminescent or radioactive material}
- G01J 1/4228: {arrangements with two or more detectors, e.g. for sensitivity compensation}
- G01J 3/42: Absorption spectrometry; Double beam spectrometry; Flicker spectrometry; Reflection spectrometry (beam switching arrangements G01J3/08)
- G01J 2001/083: {Testing response of detector}
- G01J: MEASUREMENT OF INTENSITY, VELOCITY, SPECTRAL CONTENT, POLARISATION, PHASE OR PULSE CHARACTERISTICS OF INFRARED, VISIBLE OR ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT; COLORIMETRY; RADIATION PYROMETRY (light sources F21, H01J, H01K, H05B; investigating properties of materials by optical means G01N)

## Abstract

A calibration method for an absolute responsivity of a terahertz quantum well detector and a calibration device thereof, in which the device at least comprises: a driving power supply, a single frequency laser source, an optic, a terahertz array detector, a terahertz dynamometer, a current amplifier and an oscilloscope. The calibration method adopts a power detectable single frequency laser source as a calibration photosource, to obtain the absolute responsivity parameters of the detector at the laser frequency; a normalized photocurrent spectrum of the detector is used to further calculate the absolute responsivity parameters of the detector at any detectable frequency. the single frequency laser source with periodically output is adopted as a calibration photosource, the terahertz array detector and the dynamometer are adopted to directly measure and obtain the incident power of the calibrated detector.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A device for calibrating an absolute responsivity of a terahertz quantum well detector, at least comprising: a driving power supply, a single frequency laser source, an optic, a terahertz array detector, a terahertz dynamometer, a current amplifier and an oscilloscope, characterized in that,
the single frequency laser source is connected with the driving power supply, for radiating terahertz laser by the driving signal of the driving power supply;
the optic is placed at one side of the single frequency laser source, for converging the terahertz laser;
the terahertz array detector is placed at one side of the optic, for measuring a cross-sectional shape of a convergent spot at a convergent focal point of the terahertz laser;
the terahertz dynamometer is placed at one side of the optic, for measuring the total power of the convergent spot at the convergent focal point;
the current amplifier is used for powering the terahertz quantum well detector, and extracting and amplifying a loop current as a voltage signal;
the oscilloscope is respectively connected with the current amplifier and the driving power supply, for displaying and reading the voltage signal, a external trigger signal in the display process is a reference signal outputted by the driving power supply.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The device for calibrating an absolute responsivity of a terahertz quantum well detector according to claim 1, characterized in that, the single frequency laser source is a terahertz quantum cascade laser or a carbon dioxide gas laser.

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

The device for calibrating an absolute responsivity of a terahertz quantum well detector according to claim 1, characterized in that, the optic is a set of polyethylene lenses, at least including two polyethylene lenses.

### Claim 4 (depends on 1)

The device for calibrating an absolute responsivity of a terahertz quantum well detector according to claim 1, characterized in that, the driving power supply is a pulse signal generator.

### Claim 5 (depends on 1)

The device for calibrating an absolute responsivity of a terahertz quantum well detector according to claim 1, characterized in that, the oscilloscope is a digital oscilloscope, at least including two measurable channels.

### Claim 6 (depends on 1)

A method for calibrating an absolute responsivity of a terahertz quantum well detector by adopting the device according to claim 1, characterized in that, at least comprising the following steps:
S1: driving the single frequency laser source by a square signal of the driving power supply with an output period oft, to make the single frequency laser source radiate a terahertz laser with the same period of the driving signal, and with a frequency of f;
S2: adjusting the optic to a preset location, to make the terahertz laser reach a converging focal point through the optic;
S3: placing the terahertz array detector at the converging focal point, and measuring the cross-sectional shape of the convergent spot at the convergent focal point, to calculate the cross-sectional area S′;
S4: placing the terahertz dynamometer at the convergent focal point, and measuring the total power P′ of the convergent spot at the convergent focal point;
S5: placing the terahertz quantum well detector at the convergent focal point, and powering the terahertz quantum well detector by the current amplifier, and extracting and amplifying the loop current as a voltage signal U, using the oscilloscope to display and to read the voltage signal U, and serving the external trigger signal displayed on the oscilloscope as the reference signal outputted by the driving power supply, then adjusting the location of the terahertz quantum well detector to make the voltage signal U displayed on the oscilloscope reach a maximum value Umax;
S6: comparing the dimension of the convergent spot at the convergent focal point with the size of the photosensitive surface of the terahertz quantum well detector, and calculating the largest area S″ of the overlapable region therebetween, then incident laser power P on the sensitive surface of the detector is that:
P
=
α
⁢
⁢
P
′
⁢
S
″
S
′
wherein, α is a transmittance of the window of the cooling Duwar of the terahertz quantum well detector at the laser frequency f;
S7: according to the amplification sensitivity G of the current amplifier, the calculated photocurrent value generated by the terahertz quantum well detector is that I=G·Umax; according to the received laser power P and the generated photocurrent value I by the terahertz quantum well detector, the responsivity value Rf at the laser frequency f is obtained as:
R
f
=
G
·
U
max
P
S8: according to the corresponding response amplitude a (a<1) in the normalized photocurrent spectrum of the terahertz quantum well detector at the laser frequency f, the absolute responsivity Rmax of the terahertz quantum well detector at the detected peak frequency fmax is calculated as:
R
max
=
R
f
⁢
1
a
and according to the corresponding normalized response amplitude b (b<1) at other frequency fj, the absolute responsivity Rj of the terahertz quantum well detector at the frequency is calculated as:
R
j
=
R
f
⁢
b
a
.

### Claim 7 (depends on 6)

The method according to claim 6, characterized in that, in step S3, the cross-sectional area S′ is calculated by a circular area approximated method.

### Claim 8 (depends on 6)

The method according to claim 6, characterized in that, the sensitivity surface area of the terahertz dynamometer is larger than the area of the convergent spot; in step S4, the laser power measured by the terahertz dynamometer is the total power of the convergent spot, and the average power of the measured convergent spots is obtained, then the total peak power of the convergent spots is calculated as twice of the average power according to the duty ratio of 50% of the square signal.