Study on characteristics of terahertz radiation in the surface and far field generated by large-aperture photoconductive antennas

Abstract

The time-domain characteristics of terahertz radiations emitted from a biased large-aperture photoconductive antenna trigged by an ultra-short optical pulse are studied. Succinct explicit expressions in the surface field and in the far field for the emitted THz radiation fields are deduced based on the well-known current-surge model. The expressions indicate that the THz radiations in the surface and far fields are mainly affected by the incident light intensity, the incident light wavelength, the carrier relaxation time, the reflectivity illuminated at the photoconductor, the carrier lifetime, and the incident light pulse width. The characteristics of THz radiation in the surface and far fields are discussed, and the phenomena of changes in the radiation peak values, the radiation pulse width, and the rising edges are explained in details. Especially the changes in surface fields are explained with the increasing of the ratio of luminous flux. The numerical results indicate that the emitted THz radiation intensity can be increased by enhancing the ratio of luminous flux, prolonging the carrier lifetime, or reducing the incident light pulse width. To avoid the shielding effect of the radiation field, an effectively method is presented that the intense of the incident laser pulse could be divided into multiple beams with low energy to trigger the photoconductive antenna, thus the THz radiation power can be further increased significantly.