As a wide band gap semiconductor, ZnO have attracted much attention due to their opportunity of combining band gap engineering, with large excitonic binding energies in the UV-visible range. While many wonderful fundamental results (LED, polariton lasers, etc) have been obtained with this material platform thanks a huge improvement of the growth methods, the development has always been limited in terms of applications by a lack of reliable p-type doping. In this presentation I will address new opportunities of this material platform in a radically different range which does not require p-type doping: from IR to THz. After a deep optimization of the designs and the growth processes, quantum cascade detectors and emitters have been processed and characterized in the Mid-IR and the THz range demonstrating the huge potential of oxides to address the issue of efficient emitters in the THz range. In addition, new opportunities of these heterostructures in even more emerging fields such as hyperbolic metamaterials and multisubband plasmons will be explored.
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