A Nanographite Film-Based Fast Response Detector for Intense Laser Radiation

A simple high-speed photodetector of high-power laser radiation, based on the optical rectification effect, is described. It operates without an external power source. A nanographite film deposited onto a silicon substrate using the plasmochemical deposition technique and having two conducting surface electrodes is used as the photodetector’s photosensitive element. The performance of this device was demonstrated by detecting pulsed laser radiation in a spectral range of 0.266–1.9 µm using the second, third, and fourth harmonics of radiation from an YAG : Nd³⁺ laser with passive Q-switching and radiation from light oscillators based on stimulated Raman scattering in compressed hydrogen. It was shown that the photodetector sensitivity is proportional to the optical radiation frequency and its response time is shorter than 0.5 ns.__________Translated from Pribory i Tekhnika Eksperimenta, No. 3, 2005, pp. 84–89.Original Russian Text Copyright © 2005 by Mikheev, Zonov, Obraztsov, Svirko, Volkov.