Microspectroscopy and Imaging in the THz Range Using Coherent CW Radiation

A novel THz near-field spectrometer is presented which allows to perform biological and medical studies with high spectral resolution combined with a spatial resolution down to l/100. In the setup an aperture much smaller than the used wavelength is placed in the beam very close to the sample. The sample is probed by the evanescent wave behind the aperture. The distance is measured extremely accurate by a confocal microscope. We use monochromatic sources which provide powerful coherent cw radiation tuneable from 50 GHz up to 1.5 THz. Transmission and reflection experiments can be performed which enable us to study solids and molecules in aqueous solution. Examples for spectroscopic investigations on biological tissues are presented.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, email: [email protected]

Mobility gap in intermediate valent TmSe

The infrared optical conductivity of intermediate valence compound TmSe reveals clear signatures for hybridization of light $d$- and heavy f-electronic states with m* ~ 1.6 m_0 and m* ~ 16 m_0, respectively. At moderate and high temperatures, the metal-like character of the heavy carriers dominate the low-frequency response while at low temperatures (T_N < T < 100 K) a gap-like feature is observed in the conductivity spectra below 10 meV which is assigned to be a mobility gap due to localization of electrons on local Kondo singlets, rather than a hybridization gap in the density of states

Analysis of broadband microwave conductivity and permittivity measurements of semiconducting materials

We perform broadband phase sensitive measurements of the reflection coefficient from 45 MHz up to 20 GHz employing a vector network analyzer with a 2.4 mm coaxial sensor which is terminated by the sample under test. While the material parameters (conductivity and permittivity) can be easily extracted from the obtained impedance data if the sample is metallic, no direct solution is possible if the material under investigation is an insulator. Focusing on doped semiconductors with largely varying conductivity, here we present a closed calibration and evaluation procedure for frequencies up to 5 GHz, based on the rigorous solution for the electromagnetic field distribution inside the sample combined with the variational principle; basically no limiting assumptions are necessary. A simple static model based on the electric current distribution proves to yield the same frequency dependence of the complex conductivity up to 1 GHz. After a critical discussion we apply the developed method to the hopping transport in Si:P at temperature down to 1 K.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Physic

Evidence for a Bulk Complex Order-Parameter in Y0.9Ca0.1Ba2Cu3O7-delta Thin Films

We have measured the penetration depth of overdoped Y0.9Ca0.1Ba2Cu3O7-delta (Ca-YBCO) thin films using two different methods. The change of the penetration depth as a function of temperature has been measured using the parallel plate resonator (PPR), while its absolute value was obtained from a quasi-optical transmission measurements. Both sets of measurements are compatible with an order parameter of the form: Delta*dx2-y2+i*delta*dxy, with Delta=14.5 +- 1.5 meV and delta=1.8 meV, indicating a finite gap at low temperature. Below 15 K the drop of the scattering rate of uncondensed carriers becomes steeper in contrast to a flattening observed for optimally doped YBCO films. This decrease supports our results on the penetration depth temperature dependence. The findings are in agreement with tunneling measurements on similar Ca-YBCO thin films.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Spin excitations of the correlated semiconductor FeSi probed by THz radiation

By direct measurements of the complex optical conductivity $\sigma(\nu)$ of FeSi we have discovered a broad absorption peak centered at frequency $\nu_{0}(4.2 K) \approx 32 cm^{-1}$ that develops at temperatures below 20 K. This feature is caused by spin-polaronic states formed in the middle of the gap in the electronic density of states. We observe the spin excitations between the electronic levels split by the exchange field of $H_{e}=34\pm 6 T$. Spin fluctuations are identified as the main factor determining the formation of the spin polarons and the rich magnetic phase diagram of FeSi.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Linear-in-frequency optical conductivity in GdPtBi due to transitions near the triple points

The complex optical conductivity of the half-Heusler compound GdPtBi is measured in a frequency range from 20 to 22 000 cm$^{-1}$ (2.5 meV - 2.73 eV) at temperatures down to 10 K in zero magnetic field. We find the real part of the conductivity, $\sigma_{1}(\omega)$, to be almost perfectly linear in frequency over a broad range from 50 to 800 cm$^{-1}$ ($\sim$ 6 - 100 meV) for $T \leq 50$ K. This linearity strongly suggests the presence of three-dimensional linear electronic bands with band crossings (nodes) near the chemical potential. Band-structure calculations show the presence of triple points, where one doubly degenerate and one nondegenerate band cross each other in close vicinity of the chemical potential. From a comparison of our data with the optical conductivity computed from the band structure, we conclude that the observed nearly linear $\sigma_{1}(\omega)$ originates as a cumulative effect from all the transitions near the triple points.Comment: 5+ pages, 5 figures, band-structure and optical-conductivity calculations adde

Origin of Low-Energy Excitations in Charge-Ordered Manganites

The low-energy excitations in the charge-ordered phase of polycrystalline La0.25Ca0.75MnO3 are explored by frequency-domain terahertz spectroscopy. In the frequency range from 4 cm^-1 to 700 cm^-1 (energies 0.4 meV to 90 meV) and at temperatures down to 5 K, we do not detect any feature that can be associated with the collective response of the spatially modulated charge continuum. In the antiferromagnetically ordered phase, broad absorption bands appear in the conductivity and permittivity spectra around 30 cm^-1 and 100 cm^-1 which are assigned to former acoustic phonons optically activated due to a fourfold superstructure in the crystal lattice. Our results indicate that characteristic energies of collective excitations of the charge-ordered phase in La0:25Ca0:75MnO3, if any, lie below 1 meV. At our lowest frequencies of only few wavenumbers a strong relaxation is observed above 100 K connected to the formation of the charge-ordered state.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Two-channel conduction in YbPtBi

We investigated transport, magnetotransport, and broadband optical properties of the half-Heusler compound YbPtBi. Hall measurements evidence two types of charge carriers: highly mobile electrons with a temperature-dependent concentration and low-mobile holes; their concentration stays almost constant within the investigated temperature range from 2.5 to 300 K. The optical spectra (10 meV - 2.7 eV) can be naturally decomposed into contributions from intra- and interband absorption processes, the former manifesting themselves as two Drude bands with very different scattering rates, corresponding to the charges with different mobilities. These results of the optical measurements allow us to separate the contributions from electrons and holes to the total conductivity and to implement a two-channel-conduction model for description of the magnetotransport data. In this approach, the electron and hole mobilities are found to be around 50000 and 10 cm$^{2}$/Vs at the lowest temperatures (2.5 K), respectively.Comment: 6 page