Enhanced photoconductive terahertz antenna array devices

Single element coplanar strip-line photoconductive (PC) emitters remain to date the most common means of generating an detecting sub-picosecond terahertz radiation. These antennas however, suffer from excitation power limitations leading to relatively early saturation. It is possible to overcome such limitations by using several radiating elements arranged as an array. We present an array structure fabricated on low-temperature-grown gallium arsenide. The array is designed using classical array theory to exhibit the required directivity to be matched to collimating and beam steering optics of conventional THz-TDS measurement system.