PHOTOCONDUCTIVE ANTENNA ARRAY

摘要

A photoconductive antenna has an array of antenna electrodes on or in a photoconductive substrate. The photoconductive substrate is irradiated with light from a pulsed laser via micro-lenses above respective gaps between antenna electrodes. This makes the photoconductive substrate temporarily conductive, causing pulsed electric antenna currents that can be used for transmission of electromagnetic radiation in the Terahertz range. The bias circuit of the antenna is configured to determine voltages applied to the antenna electrodes by capacitive voltage division over a series of successive capacitors, each capacitor being formed by the antenna electrodes of a respective pair of successive ones of the antenna electrodes in the array as plates of the capacitor adjacent to a respective one of the gaps.