Prof Michael Johnston

Abstract:

We have investigated the conductivity of equilibrium and photoexcited electrons in nanoporous Indium phosphide (InP) of various porosities and of two orientations: (100) and (111). We observed an enhanced transmission through the nanoporous samples compared with bulk InP, resulting from a suppression of the conductivity by the pores. The frequency-dependent conductivity was extracted numerically from the transmission data. We examined the dynamical conductivity of photoexcited carriers using optical-pump THz-probe spectroscopy. After the rapid photoexcitation of electrons, the time-resolved conductivity was observed to decay slowly, with carrier recombination lifetimes exceeding 1ns for all (100)- and (111)-oriented samples.

Abstract:

We report the complex refractive index of La5/3Sr1/3NiO4 over the terahertz frequency range, obtained using time-domain spectroscopy. Negligible change in the complex refractive index with magnetic flux densities up to 6T was seen, while changes were observed as the lattice temperature was increased from 1.5 K to the charge-ordering temperature at 220 K. The terahertz frequency response therefore originates from the dielectric function rather than the magnetic permeability.