Analysis and Optimization of Terahertz Bolometer Antennas

Bolometer antennas are required to have not only a large gain-bandwidth product but also a fast heating rate suitable for video rate operation. However, while the gain-bandwidth product of an antenna increases with the fraction of the antenna bulk volume occupied by its enclosing sphere, its heating rate decreases. In this paper, we show that for a typical heating rate requirement, wire antennas such as dipole and bow-tie antennas are preferable over planar antennas such as triangular and pentagonal antennas. More complex bent-wire antenna geometries achieved by a genetic algorithm are shown to yield better performance.