Surface wave loss reduction by spherical reflector enhances antenna coupled IR detector performance

Antenna coupled Infrared (IR) detectors are increasingly researched for their promising fast response, uncooled operation and CMOS compatibility. However, their three order of magnitude lower detectivity compared to other commercial IR detectors is the main obstacle to be commercialized. One of the directions that is expected to increase the detectivity is through decreasing the expected sever losses as well as crosstalk that may arise due to surface waves. This direction is addressed in this work by integrating the detector with a spherical reflector which is presented here for the first time. The performance enhancement of the dipole antenna by spherical reflector backed structure is thus studied here through simulation using CST. The simulation shows a 20 dB increase in the gain of the spherical reflector backed structure compared to the simple dipole without the reflector.