Boosting Terahertz Photoconductive Antenna Performance with Optimised Plasmonic Nanostructures

Sergey Lepeshov; Andrei Gorodetsky; Alexander Krasnok; Nikita A. Toropov; T. A. Vartanyan; Pavel Belov; Andrea  Alú; Edik U. Rafailov

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-25013-7

Boosting Terahertz Photoconductive Antenna Performance with Optimised Plasmonic Nanostructures

Sergey Lepeshov, Andrei Gorodetsky, Alexander Krasnok, Nikita A. Toropov, T. A. Vartanyan, Pavel Belov, Andrea Alú, Edik U. Rafailov

Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AiPT)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Advanced nanophotonics penetrates into other areas of science and technology, ranging from applied physics to biology, which results in many fascinating cross-disciplinary applications. It has been recently demonstrated that suitably engineered light-matter interactions at the nanoscale can overcome the limitations of today’s terahertz (THz) photoconductive antennas, making them one step closer to many practical implications. Here, we push forward this concept by comprehensive numerical optimization and experimental investigation of a log-periodic THz photoconductive antenna coupled to a silver nanoantenna array. We shed light on the operation principles of the resulting hybrid THz antenna, providing an approach to boost its performance. By tailoring the size of silver nanoantennas and their arrangement, we obtain an enhancement of optical-to-THz conversion efficiency 2-fold larger compared with previously reported results for similar structures, and the strongest enhancement is around 1 THz, a frequency range barely achievable by other compact THz sources. We also propose a cost-effective fabrication procedure to realize such hybrid THz antennas with optimized plasmonic nanostructures via thermal dewetting process, which does not require any post processing and makes the proposed solution very attractive for applications.

Original language	English
Article number	6624
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-25013-7
Publication status	Published - 26 Apr 2018

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© The Author(s) 2018

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Boosting Terahertz Photoconductive Antenna Performance with Optimised Plasmonic Nanostructures
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2018
Final published version, 1.53 MBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

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abstract = "Advanced nanophotonics penetrates into other areas of science and technology, ranging from applied physics to biology, which results in many fascinating cross-disciplinary applications. It has been recently demonstrated that suitably engineered light-matter interactions at the nanoscale can overcome the limitations of today{\textquoteright}s terahertz (THz) photoconductive antennas, making them one step closer to many practical implications. Here, we push forward this concept by comprehensive numerical optimization and experimental investigation of a log-periodic THz photoconductive antenna coupled to a silver nanoantenna array. We shed light on the operation principles of the resulting hybrid THz antenna, providing an approach to boost its performance. By tailoring the size of silver nanoantennas and their arrangement, we obtain an enhancement of optical-to-THz conversion efficiency 2-fold larger compared with previously reported results for similar structures, and the strongest enhancement is around 1 THz, a frequency range barely achievable by other compact THz sources. We also propose a cost-effective fabrication procedure to realize such hybrid THz antennas with optimized plasmonic nanostructures via thermal dewetting process, which does not require any post processing and makes the proposed solution very attractive for applications.",

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AU - Belov, Pavel

AU - Alú, Andrea

AU - Rafailov, Edik U.

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N2 - Advanced nanophotonics penetrates into other areas of science and technology, ranging from applied physics to biology, which results in many fascinating cross-disciplinary applications. It has been recently demonstrated that suitably engineered light-matter interactions at the nanoscale can overcome the limitations of today’s terahertz (THz) photoconductive antennas, making them one step closer to many practical implications. Here, we push forward this concept by comprehensive numerical optimization and experimental investigation of a log-periodic THz photoconductive antenna coupled to a silver nanoantenna array. We shed light on the operation principles of the resulting hybrid THz antenna, providing an approach to boost its performance. By tailoring the size of silver nanoantennas and their arrangement, we obtain an enhancement of optical-to-THz conversion efficiency 2-fold larger compared with previously reported results for similar structures, and the strongest enhancement is around 1 THz, a frequency range barely achievable by other compact THz sources. We also propose a cost-effective fabrication procedure to realize such hybrid THz antennas with optimized plasmonic nanostructures via thermal dewetting process, which does not require any post processing and makes the proposed solution very attractive for applications.

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Boosting Terahertz Photoconductive Antenna Performance with Optimised Plasmonic Nanostructures

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