Time-Domain Characterization of the Radiation Pattern of the Terahertz Photoconductive Antennas

Abstract

We present a novel method to characterize the radiation pattern of the terahertz photoconductive antennas in time-domain. The method uses a modified version of the terahertz time-domain spectroscopy system, where we use the basics of physical optics and the optical path compensation principle using the delay line in the system in order to detect the spatial distribution of the terahertz radiation of the photoconductive antennas in two major planes. Using this method, we investigate two terahertz photoconductive antennas, namely dipole and spiral antennas, and compare the measurement results with simulations in time-domain. The comparison of the calculation and measurement results shows good agreement, where we measure an average and maximum optical path difference error of 4.7 and 8%, which results in an average and maximum half-power beam width error of 1.87 and 3.2 degrees, respectively. We believe that the proposed method will be useful for predicting the system level performance of the terahertz time-domain spectroscopy systems in real-life applications.