Terahertz conical horn antenna

Terahertz (THz) wave has attracted a lot of attention in recent years because of its huge potential applications. The most widely used structure for THz generation and detection is photoconductive dipole antenna which has an omni-directional radiation pattern, so how to generate THz wave efficiently in a desired direction is still a problem to be resolved. This paper introduces a new type of photoconductive antenna which can generate THz wave efficiently with high directivity. This new structure integrates a conical horn to a photoconductive emitter. It is demonstrated in this paper that this new photoconductive antenna is different from the conventional microwave horn antenna especially at the feed structure. After optimisation, the antenna can generate THz wave efficiently and radiate to a desired direction, and the directivity can be changed by altering the horn dimensions.