Terahertz emission from Mg-doped a-plane InN

Abstract

We report terahertz (THz) emission from magnesium doped a-plane indium nitride (a-InN:Mg) films with different background carrier density, relative to the Mg-doped InN films grown along the c-axis (c-InN: Mg). Due to its high electron affinity, as-grown InN film is typically n-type and it has extremely high background carrier density, which causes much weaker THz emission than that from other semiconductors, such as InAs. The background carrier density of Mg-doped InN can be widely changed by adjusting the Mg doping level. For c-InN: Mg, THz emission is dramatically enhanced (x500 than that of undoped c-InN) as the background carrier density decreases to a critical value of similar to 1x10(18) cm(-3), which is due to the reduced screening of the photo-Dember field at the lower carrier density. For a-InN, however, intense THz emission (x400 than that of undoped c-InN) is observed for both undoped and Mg-doped a-InN and the enhancement is weakly dependent on the background carrier density. The primary THz radiation mechanism of the a-plane InN film is found to be due to the acceleration of photoexcited carriers under the polarization-induced in-plane electric field perpendicular to the a-axis, which effectively enhances the geometrical coupling of the radiation out of semiconductor. The weak dependence of THz radiation on the background carrier density for a-InN shows that in-plane surface field induced-terahertz emission is not affected by the background carrier density. Small, but apparent azimuthal angle dependence of terahertz emission is also observed for a-InN, indicating the additional contribution of nonlinear optical processes on terahertz emission.