Plasmonic Photoconductive Antennas for High Power Terahertz Generation

A plasmonic photoconductive antenna architecture is presented and characterized experimentally. This architecture incorporates plasmonic gratings as a part of the terahertz radiating antenna, enabling both high quantum efficiency and ultrafast operation, simultaneously. Also, this photoconductive antenna architecture circumvents the need of a short-carrier lifetime substrate, allowing use of high-mobility crystalline substrates. Experimental results on the first generation plasmonic photoconductive antennas indicate significant terahertz power enhancement compared to the state-of-the art.