Photoconductive dipole antennas for efficient terahertz receiver

We designed various photoconductive antennas applicable to efficient terahertz (THz) receivers and experimentally investigated their detection characteristics. Three different antennas based on Grischkowsky (H-), I-, and bowtie shapes were fabricated on a 1.2-μm-thick low-temperature GaAs layer that was grown on a semi-insulating GaAs substrate and subsequently attached to extended hemispherical silicon lenses. The experimental results showed different characteristics for detection responsivity and agreed well with the theoretical prediction. Measurements of the peak-to-peak amplitudes of the detected THz photocurrent were approximately 67, 42, and 59 nA for the H-shaped, I-shaped, and bowtie-shaped antennas, respectively. The I- and bowtie-shaped antennas provided higher THz detection sensitivities than the H-shaped antenna in the low-frequency region, i.e., below 0.6 THz. At a frequency of 0.2 THz, the I- and bowtie-shaped antennas offered an approximately 3.6-fold and 6-fold enhancement, respectively, in THz detection sensitivity compared to the H-shaped antenna. The bowtie-shaped antenna produced better peak amplitude and a wider spectral bandwidth than the I-shaped antenna. The observed detection peak frequencies of the I-shaped and bowtie-shaped antennas possessing very long dipole arms indicate that the lowest limit of the frequency detected in a typical THz-TDS using a GaAs photoconductive antenna as emitter/detector is around 0.2 THz.