Nanoconcentration of terahertz radiation in plasmonic waveguides

Abstract

We establish the principal limits for the nanoconcentration of the THz radiation in metal/dielectric waveguides and determine their optimum shapes required for this nanoconcentration. We predict that the adiabatic compression of THz radiation from the initial spot size of R(0) approximately lambda(0) to the final size of R = 100- 250 nm can be achieved, while the THz radiation intensity is increased by a factor of x10 to x250. This THz energy nanoconcentration will not only improve the spatial resolution and increase the signal/noise ratio for the THz imaging and spectroscopy, but in combination with the recently developed sources of powerful THz pulses will allow the observation of nonlinear THz effects and a variety of nonlinear spectroscopies (such as two-dimensional spectroscopy), which are highly informative. This will find a wide spectrum of applications in science, engineering, biomedical research, environmental monitoring, and defense.