eneration of terahertz radiation in boron-doped diamond

We demonstrate for the first time the ability of semiconductor diamond to convert near-IR laser radiation into terahertz radiation. A set of photoconductive antennas based on single-crystal diamonds doped with boron (∼1 ppm) is assembled and tested under pumping conditions with ultrashort (τ_opt ≈ 150 fs) radiation pulses with a wavelength of 800 nm and a pulsed voltage (τ_E ≈ 10 ns, E_bias ≈ 10 kV·cm^–1). The performance of the boron-doped emitters is compared with recently implemented nitrogen-doped diamond antennas pumped with 400 nm radiation pulses, since substituted nitrogen requires a much higher quantum energy for single-photon excitation of carriers. The results obtained are another step towards the use of diamond as a material for high-performance photoconductive antennas.