Surface enhancement of THz wave by coupling a subwavelength LiNbO₃ slab waveguide with a composite antenna structure

Highly intense terahertz electromagnetic field and efficiently surface localized terahertz field in subwavelength volumes are of vital importance for terahertz photonics integration, also will greatly accelerate the development for integrated applications in biochemical sensing, imaging, terahertz spectroscopy, enhancement of nonlinear effects and even quantum research. In this paper, we achieved large terahertz field enhancement and surface field localization through depositing a pair of Au composite antennas on a LiNbO₃ subwavelength slab waveguide, which can serve as an excellent on-chip platform for terahertz research and application. The antennas consist of two opposing tip-to-tip triangles separated by a gap, and each triangle combines with a strip antenna. Time-resolved imaging and finite-difference time-domain method were used to resolve the characteristics of the designed antennas experimentally and simulatively. Through these methods, we demonstrated outstanding abilities of the platform: leading to a large electric field enhancement, concentrating almost full terahertz energy on the waveguide's surface when they are resonant with the terahertz waves and tunable resonant frequency. These abilities make the subwavelength waveguide coupling with the composite antennas be able to sever as a good integrated device to identify terahertz-sensitive small objects, or an excellent platform to terahertz spectroscopy and quantum research.