Large near-field enhancement in terahertz antennas by using hyperbolic metamaterials with hole arrays

Abstract

Terahertz antennas can greatly enhance the near fields and enable strong light-matter interactions, and thus have been widely used in applications such as terahertz sensing and detection. Here we propose a novel approach to further enhance the near fields in terahertz antennas. We show that by sandwiching hyperbolic metamaterials that are composed of InSb and SiO2 multilayer and that are dressed with hole arrays, between a terahertz dipole antenna and the substrate, the near-field electric field intensities in the antenna can be further enhanced by more than three times. Simulations reveal that this enhancement originates from the doubly enhanced in-plane electric field component and the significantly enhanced out-of-plane electric field component. We expect this work will advance the design of terahertz antennas that are widely used in sensors and detectors.