FDTD analysis of propagation characteristics of terahertz electromagnetic pulses

A three dimensional finite difference time domain (FDTD) technique is applied to analyze the propagation characteristics of terahertz (THz) antenna whose dimension is smaller than the wavelength. A diffraction theory is also utilized with the FDTD technique for observing the far-field dispersion and attenuation of radiation from the THz antenna with a hyper-hemispherical silicon lens which is much larger than the wavelength. The signal degradation effects due to misalignment between the antenna and silicon lens are also characterized.