Modes in silver-iodide-lined hollow metallic waveguides mapped by terahertz near-field time-domain microscopy

Abstract

Thin dielectric layers inside hollow metallic waveguides are used to improve the waveguide transmission characteristics as the dominant waveguide mode changes into the hybrid HE11 mode. We investigate the effect of 1 μm thick silver iodide (AgI) coatings on the fundamental modes in cylindrical waveguides at terahertz (THz) frequencies, in the regime of the dielectric layer being thinner than the optimal thickness hopt� 2 THz� ≈ 20 μm. In the region of 1–3.2 THz, the lowest-order modes are similar in profile to the TE11 and TM11 modes, as determined by the timeresolved near-field measurements and verified numerically. Higher-order modes are detected experimentally as mode mixtures due to the multimode propagation. Numerical electromagnetic modeling is applied to resolve the mode structure ambiguity, allowing us to correlate experimentally detected patterns with a superposition of the TM11 and the higher-order mode, TE12. Mode profiles determined here indicate that in the regime of ultrathin dielectric (h ≪ 0.1λeff), the dielectric layer does not transform the dominant mode into the low-loss HE11 mode. Experimental mode patterns similar to the HE11 and the TE01 modes nevertheless can be formed due to mode beating. The results indicate that the Ag/AgI waveguides can be used for guiding THz waves in the TE01 mode or the TE12 mode with high discrimination against other modes. © 2012 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 110.6795, 180.4243, 320.7100.