We report on experimental evidence of unidirectional transmission of terahertz waves through a pair of metallic gratings with different periods. The gratings are optimized for a broadband transmission in one direction, accompanied with a high extinction rate in the opposite direction. In contrast to previous studies, we show that the zero-order nonreciprocity cannot be achieved. Nonetheless, we confirm that the structure can be used successfully as an asymmetric filter.

We detail the influence of a magnetic field on exciton-polaritons inside a semiconductor microcavity. Magnetic field can be used as a tuning parameter for exciton and photon resonances. We discuss the change of the exciton energy, the oscillator strength, and redistribution of the polariton density along the dispersion curves due to the magnetically induced detuning. We have observed that field-induced shrinkage of the exciton wave function has a direct influence not only on the exciton oscillator strength, which is observed to increase with the magnetic field, but also on the polariton linewidth. We discuss the effect of the Zeeman splitting on polaritons the magnitude of which changes with the exciton Hopfield coefficient and can be modeled by independent coupling of the two spin components of excitons with cavity photons.

Low temperature, high magnetic field experiments were carried out with monochromatic terahertz (THz) sources to reveal multimode spectra of magnetoplasmons excited in gated and ungated samples processed on a high electron mobility GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. We show that playing with the geometry and thickness of the gate one can control both the plasmon dispersion relation and selection rules for plasmon excitation, giving a tool to a better control of plasmon resonances in THz detectors.

Terahertz (THz) radiation couples to a two-dimensional electron plasma in high-electron-mobility heterostructures which allows one to study fundamental properties of this electron system and construct plasma-based devices. This article reviews some of the recent results of theoretical and experimental studies on plasmon–THz photon interaction. In particular, plasma dispersion relations, mechanisms of THz-field rectification and ultrastrong light–matter coupling are discussed in conventional structures based on GaAs and CdTe and new materials—graphene and black phosphorus.

Terahertz spectroscopy experiments at magnetic fields and low temperatures were carried out on samples of different gate shapes processed on a high electron mobility GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. For a given radiation frequency, multiple magnetoplasmon resonances were observed with a dispersion relation described within a local approximation of the magnetoconductivity tensor. The second harmonic of the cyclotron resonance was observed and its appearance was interpreted as resulting from a high-frequency, inhomogeneous electromagnetic field on the border of a two-dimensional electron gas with a metallic gate and/or an ohmic contact.