Abstract-Nanofocusing of terahertz wave in a tapered hyperbolic metal waveguide

Nanofocusing of terahertz wave in a tapered hyperbolic metal waveguide Hua Gao, Qing Cao, Minning Zhu, Da Teng, and Siyi Shen  »View Author Affiliations

Optics Express, Vol. 22, Issue 26, pp. 32071-32081 (2014)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.22.032071

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http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-22-26-32071

Abstract

An tapered hyperbolic metal waveguide is suggested for the nanofocusing of terahertz waves. We numerically show that, at the frequency of 1 THz, the focal spot can be as small as only 5 nm, which is smaller than that of a plate waveguide by 2 orders of magnitude. Correspondingly, the longitudinal component of the energy flow density is stronger than that of a plate waveguide by 3 orders of magnitude for the same input. It is shown that these significant improvements come from the small imaginary part of the effective index of the hyperbolic metal waveguide.

© 2014 Optical Society of America