3D-integration of a log spiral antenna onto a dual grating-gate plasmon-resonant terahertz emitter for high-directivity radiation

We report a high-directivity plasmon-resonant terahertz (THz) emitter (PRE) incorporating a 3D-integrated antenna complex. The emitter structure is based on a high electron mobility transistor having unique doubly interdigitated grating gates as a broadband THz antenna that can convert non-radiative plasmons to radiative electromagnetic waves. Due to the sub-wavelength aperture of practical grating-antenna dimension, however, present structure of PRE exhibits undesirable diffraction effect, resulting in poor directivity. We developed a new device structure featuring a 3D-integration of tightly-coupled multiple-antenna complex to improve the directivity. The directivity of a new device was dramatically improved by a factor of 5.7 over the frequencies from 1.8 to 4.0 THz.