基于光导微探针的近场/远场可扫描太赫兹光谱技术

太赫兹技术已经成为涉及公共安全、军事国防和国民经济等国家核心利益的前沿研究领域.以往太赫兹测量技术中通常以远场测量为主,如常用的太赫兹时域光谱仪.近年来太赫兹近场技术得到了迅猛的发展,特别是基于光导天线的探针技术的发展,为可扫描的太赫兹近场测量提供了可能.本文详细报道了我们近期在可扫描太赫兹近场光谱仪研究中的进展.采用光纤耦合的光导微探针实现了方便灵活的太赫兹近场/远场三维扫描,并同时获得振幅和相位信息.该系统将有可能广泛应用于人工微结构、石墨烯、表面等离子激元、波导传输、近场成像、生物样品检测、芯片检测等研究领域.

Near-field and far-field scanning terahertz spectroscopy based on photoconductive microprobe

Recently, terahertz radiation has been a branch of cutting-edge science and technology involving many fields such as public security, military defense and national economy. In the past, far-field measurements were widely carried out based on terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. But the spatial resolution is limited by far-field diffraction effect. In order to break diffraction limit and gain sub-wavelength spatial resolution in terahertz frequency region, a series of near-field detection methods came into being, such as confocal microscopy, using an aperture, guided mode, scattering, direct detection in the near-field, etc. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. Using the photoconductive-antenna tip is one of the direct detection methods and it delivers the possibility of near-field measurements of terahertz waves. In this method, the photoconductive-antenna tip is a tapered photoconductive tip probe. So it can be close enough to the sample surface and receive the near-field signal on the basis of principle of photoconductivity. In this way, high spatial resolution can be gained. In this article, we introduce our recent progress of near-field and far- field scanning terahertz spectroscopy system with photoconductive-antenna in detail. Firstly, we analyze and summarize the near-field detection methods that have been developed in these years. And then, using the femtosecond laser whose center wavelength is 800 nm and the photoconductive-antenna tip detector coupled with fiber, we construct fiber near-field/ far-field scanning terahertz spectroscopy (N/F-STS). The frequency bandwidth is in a range from 0.2 THz to 1.5 THz and the terahertz spot is circular and uniform indicated by performance test. Also the amplitude and phase of the terahertz field are recorded simultaneously. It has the ability to perform three-dimension scan in various experiment conditions conveniently. Finally, we introduce the real applications in our laboratory. N/F-STS can be used to scan spatial electric distribution in three dimensions and test the spectral properties in terahertz range like other traditional far-field methods. Nevertheless, the most importantly, N/F-STS is used to scan the terahertz near-field of samples, such as terahertz surface plasmon polaritons, etc. The presented method thus is useful in some application areas, such as metamaterials, graphene, surface plasmons, waveguide transmission, near-field imaging, biological test, and chip inspection.