Nanofocusing of terahertz wave in a tapered hyperbolic metal waveguide

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.