Design of a Photoconductive Antenna for Pulsed-Terahertz Spectroscopy with Polarization Diversity

Abstract

In the present paper, a photoconductive antenna is designed to work as both pulse-terahertz emitter and receiver. The proposed two-port antenna benefits from polarization diversity with high sensitivity of polarization detection. The antenna electrodes consist of three arms and two gaps that can be excited by laser illumination. An 800 nm wavelength laser beam with output power of 80 mW, 100 MHz repetition rate, and 100 fs laser pulse duration is considered as optical excitation. Each port stimulates a pulse that its polarization is orthogonal to that of the other one according to their arrangement. Along with GaAs as photoconductive substrate beneath the antenna electrodes, an anti-reflection coating of Taconic RF-35 is used for depreciating unwanted terahertz echoes. The simulated results clarify that the proposed antenna shows polarization diversity and also, proper broadband behavior.