Publication Date
2012
Document Type
Dissertation
Committee Members
Jason Deibel (Advisor), Sharmila Mukhopadhyay (Committee Member), Douglas Petkie (Committee Member), Peter Powers (Committee Member), Raghavan Srinivasan (Committee Member)
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Abstract
Terahertz radiation, a region in the electromagnetic spectrum which lies between the microwave and infrared, has gained considerable attention recently due to interesting properties exhibited by materials exposed to this radiation. Dielectric materials such as glass, paper, plastic, and ceramics that are usually opaque at optical frequencies are transparent to terahertz radiation. This led to interesting terahertz spectroscopy and imaging applications. Finite element method simulations of plain, tapered and periodically corrugated metal terahertz wire waveguides have been conducted at the end of the waveguides. This modeling was used to guide the choice of design parameters for the fabrication of waveguides with laser micromachining. The waveguides were characterized with a fiber-coupled terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and imaging system. The THz pulses emitted at the transmitter excite the surface plasmon polaritons in the metal waveguide and propagate as surface waves that are detected at the receiver. This work involved studying the propagation properties as well as the frequency dependent diffraction at the end of the wire waveguides. The temperature dependent propagation properties of the waveguides have also been studied. The THz waveguide properties propagating along the surface of the plain, corrugated and tapered wire waveguides have been successfully demonstrated using both simulations and experimental work.
Page Count
139
Department or Program
Ph.D. in Engineering
Year Degree Awarded
2012
Copyright
Copyright 2012, all rights reserved. This open access ETD is published by Wright State University and OhioLINK.
