THz Field Enhancement by Antenna Coupling to a Tapered Thick Slot Waveguide

Author

Smith, Lee ; Ahmed, Foisal ; Jooshesh, Afshin ; Jinye Zhang ; Jun, Myung-Chul ; Darcie, Thomas

Author_Institution

Fac. of Eng., Univ. of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

Volume

32

Issue

20

fYear

2014

fDate

Oct.15, 15 2014

Firstpage

3676

Lastpage

3682

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally the coupling of a THz beam into a laser-machined double-tapered thick slot waveguide operating between 0.3 and 2 THz. Simulation reveals that the THz field generated by a standard photoconductive antenna coupled to an undoped aspheric HRFZ-silicon focusing lens can be enhanced by 30 dB in the 40 μm taper waist, relative to a traditional Gaussian beam waist (at 1 THz). Analysis of the 8 dB insertion loss reveals positive implications for coupling between THz transceivers and in-plane-emitting antennas or low-loss THz waveguides.

Keywords

aspherical optics; laser beam machining; laser materials processing; lenses; microwave photonics; optical couplers; optical focusing; optical losses; optical waveguides; photoconducting devices; photodetectors; silicon; terahertz wave generation; Gaussian beam waist; Si; frequency 0.3 THz to 2 THz; gain 30 dB; in-plane-emitting antennas; laser-machined double-tapered thick slot waveguide; loss 8 dB; low-loss terahertz waveguides; photoconductive antenna; size 40 mum; terahertz field enhancement; terahertz field generation; terahertz transceivers; undoped aspheric HRFZ-silicon focusing lens; Conductors; Couplings; Laser beams; Lenses; Optical waveguides; Principal component analysis; Waveguide lasers; Parallel plate waveguide; tapered waveguide; terahertz; terahertz field enhancement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2014.2321992

Filename

6823646