Photo mixer and method for manufacturing same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9618823-B2
Application number	US-201314430182-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 17, 2013
Priority date	Sep 21, 2012
Publication date	Apr 11, 2017
Grant date	Apr 11, 2017

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a photomixer and method of manufacturing the photomixer which can fundamentally solve the existing restrictive factors of a PCA and a photomixer which are core parts of a conventional broadband terahertz spectroscopy system. The presented photomixer includes an active layer formed on a top surface of a substrate, the active layer being formed on an area on which light is incident, and a thermal conductive layer formed on the top surface of the substrate, the thermal conductive layer being formed on an area other than the area on which light is incident. The active layer is formed to have a mesa cross section, and the thermal conductive layer is regrown on an area other than the area on which light is incident using an MOCVD method, and has a flattened surface.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A photomixer comprising:
an active layer formed on a top surface of a substrate, the active layer being formed on an area on which light is incident;
a thermal conductive layer formed on the top surface of the substrate, the thermal conductive layer being formed on an area other than the area on which light is incident, and
an electrode pattern connected to one surface of the active layer and spaced apart from the thermal conductive layer,
wherein the thermal conductive layer is formed by using an MOVCD method so that a top surface of the thermal conductive layer and a top surface of the active layer extend along substantially a same flat line.

2. The photomixer of claim 1 , wherein the active layer has a mesa cross section.

3. The photomixer of claim 1 , wherein the active layer is formed as any one selected from among the group of GaAs, InGaAs, and InGaAsP structures and an InGaAs/InAlAs multilayer thin film structure.

4. The photomixer of claim 1 , wherein the thermal conductive layer is made of any one selected from among the group of InP, GaAs, Ge, Si, AIAs, and AIGaAs.

5. The photomixer of claim 1 , wherein the active layer and the thermal conductive layer come into contact with each other.

6. The photomixer of claim 1 , further comprising a nonreflective film formed on the area on which light is incident, wherein the nonreflective film is formed over the active layer.

7. A method of manufacturing a photomixer comprising:
forming an active layer on a top surface of a substrate, the active layer being formed on an area on which light is incident;
forming a thermal conductive layer on the top surface of the substrate, the thermal conductive layer being formed on an area other than the area on which light is incident, and
forming an electrode pattern connected to one surface of the active layer and spaced apart from the thermal conductive layer,
wherein forming the thermal conductive layer is configured such that the thermal conductive layer is regrown on the area other than the area on which light is incident using an MOCVD method, and such that a top surface of the thermal conductive layer and a top surface of the active layer extend along substantially a same flat line.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein forming the active layer comprises:
growing a buffer layer vertically and horizontally on the top surface of the substrate;
growing the active layer vertically and horizontally on a top surface of the buffer layer; and
etching the area other than the area on which light is incident from the grown active layer.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein growing the active layer vertically and horizontally is configured to grow the active layer at a low temperature using a Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) method.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein growing the active layer vertically and horizontally is configured to grow the active layer using a Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) method and to perform thereon ion-implantation.

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein the active layer is formed to have a mesa cross section.

12. The method of claim 7 , wherein the thermal conductive layer is made of any one selected from among the group of InP, GaAs, Ge, Si, AIAs, and AIGaAs.

13. The method of claim 7 , further comprising forming a nonreflective film on the area on which light is incident.

Assignees

• Electronics & Telecommunications Res Inst

Inventors

• Park Kyung-Hyun
• Kim Nam-Je
• Ko Hyun-Sung
• Lee Dong-Hun
• Han Sang-Pil
• Ryu Han-Cheol
• Park Jeong-Woo
• Moon Ki-Won
• Kim Dae-Yong

Classifications

• G02F2/002

  using optical mixing · CPC title

• G02F1/353 Primary

  Frequency conversion, i.e. wherein a light beam is generated with frequency components different from those of the incident light beams · CPC title

• G02F2203/13

  involving THZ radiation · CPC title

• H01L31/14

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L31/02161

  Electricity · mapped topic