Abstract
A large aperture photoconducting antenna is a device which consists of a planar photoconductor having an active area which is much greater than the spatial duration (cτp, where τp is the time duration) of the illuminating optical pulse, as illustrated in Fig. I. These devices have recently been shown to radiate directional subpicosecond electromagnetic pulses which can be steered by varying the angle of incidence of the optical beam. We have measured the temporal waveforms, directional properties, and radiation efficiency of different photoconducting materials in antenna configurations as large as 1 cm2. The physical mechanism for the generation of subpicosecond electromagnetic pulses is the coherent surface current induced by the incident optical pulse (see Fig. 1).
© 1990 Optical Society of America
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