Focusing characteristics of 1D phase-compensated terahertz phased arrays

Abstract

This work investigates the focal localization in an N-element 1D phase-compensated terahertz phased array across the near-field and transition regimes. The wave propagation of continuous wave, Gaussian, and an experimentally measured broadband terahertz pulse produced by a photoconductive antenna (PCA) are considered in the full-wave optics regime. The results show an improvement in focal localization for larger array sizes. It was also shown in the Gaussian case that particular combinations of central frequency and spacing improve focal localization for a given array size. These results demonstrate that the emergence of a sharply defined intensity peak depends heavily on the array size, spacing between elements, and, in the Gaussian case, the central frequency.