Abstract

A photoconductive switch arrayed antenna with a chemical vapor deposited (CVD) diamond film was designed and developed for generating high-power terahertz (THz). In CVD dimoand, an electric field stress of 2×10⁶V/cm can be applied to the gaps because of the high breakdown threshold properties and the gap structure for preventing surface flashover. This level of field stress can alleviate the present problem of saturation in THz emission using a photoconductive antenna. In demonstration experiment using an ultra-short pulse Kr*F laser, an energy density of 10μJ/cm² on the emitter surface was obtained at E=10⁵ V/cm. This density was larger than that of the present large aperture antenna. The 2-inch’s aperture device, which was consisted of more than two thousand 20μm × 2.8mm emitter arrays, were developed. There was no severe saturation in photoconductive current up to E=10⁶ V/cm, and a focused intensity of 200 MW/cm² can be expected.

© 2001 IEEE