Dr. Timothy M. Benseman

Stacks of intrinsic Josephson junctions (IJJs) in extremely anisotropic high-temperature superconductors such as Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 are a promising compact solid-state source of coherent radiation in the 'terahertz gap' range. At present, no such sources exist in the range from approximately 0.5 THz to 1.3 THz, and this region is of particular interest for many applications in science, medicine, and high-bandwidth communications, as well as and security and defense. Josephson plasmons propagating in IJJs can also be employed for signal-processing electronics at THz frequencies.