Photocarriers dynamics in silicon wafer studied with optical-pump terahertz-probe spectroscopy

Optical pump-terahertz probe spectroscopy is employed to investigate the optical characteristics of silicon wafer. The wafer surface undergoes a phase transition from insulator to metal for terahertz wave with increasing pump fluence. The real part of the pump-induced conductivity shows strong frequency dependence, which can be well described with Drude–Smith model. Our results also demonstrate that the photoexcited Si layer acts as a broadband terahertz pulse antireflection coating with proper pump fluence. In addition, it is observed that the terahertz pulse apparently arrives at the detector earlier when silicon is optically excited.