Design and Performance Analysis of Terahertz Photoconductive Antenna

Interdigitated photoconductive antenna has been proposed to improve the compromise between the radiated terahertz power, and the optical to terahertz conversion efficiency, in addition to the generated pulse bandwidth. In the present work, we propose a novel structure design for interdigitated antennas, based on two dimensions (2D) interdigitated electrodes, and develop the corresponding analytical equations to calculate the related parameters. The proposed design is mainly optimized for applications that utilize lasers with average power below 175 mW, which is the case for numerous spectroscopic and imaging applications. Simulation results exhibit a significant enhancement in terahertz radiated power exceeding 6 mW. Furthermore, the proposed design allows an enhanced efficiency up to 300% compared to literature, and the bandwidth of the generated pulse is extended to 15.7 THz. This work presents a promising approach for developing highly efficient THz sources and addressing the limitations of traditional photoconductive antennas.