A photomultiplier tube with sensitivity in the entire terahertz- and infrared frequency range

We present here for the first time a photomultiplier tube (PMT), which is sensitive to light in the entire terahertz (THz)- and infrared frequency range. The PMT consists of a meta-material-based photocathode and a dynode electron multiplier system kept under vacuum. The photocathode principle is based on ultrafast electron cold field emission (CFE).

This principle makes the PMT sensitive to the electric field of the incident radiation. The PMT therefore gives direct access to a host of characteristics of the incident radiation such as polarization, absolute polarity and absolute peak electric field strength with few-ns time resolution. Due to an ongoing patent submission process at the time of writing, this abstract is stripped of core technical information which will be presented at the conference.