Infrared Antenna Designs at 30 THz

Mohammed Ahmed Nassor, Erdal Korkmaz

Korkut Yegin

Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department

Fatih University
Istanbul, TURKEY
ekorkmaz@fatih.edu.tr

Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department

Yeditepe University
Istanbul, TURKEY

Abstract This paper presents different types of planar infrared

antennas resonating at 30 THz. The designed antennas are
bowtie, trapezoidal, modified crossed dipole and balanced spiral.
The sensitivity of the antennas is analyzed at the aperture of the
antennas by varying geometrical parameter. The balanced spiral
and the modified crossed dipole antennas have higher sensitivity
than the other two antennas.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Infrared antennas are essential to couple incident radiation

to sensors such as bolometers and tunnel diodes. These
antennas are usually coupled to metal-insulator-metal (MIM)
tunnel junction (ACTJ) devices which can be used as terahertz
and IR radiation detectors [1]. For better coupling efficiency
of the antenna, these devices are usually illuminated from the
substrate side. Planar antennas radiate part of their energy into
the substrate in the form of surface waves. Depending on
substrate thickness, radiation from the substrate side of silicon
( si =11.7 for 30 THz) can be 40 times greater than the
radiation in air [2].

situation. The antenna material is chosen as gold. All the

designed antennas are optimized to resonate at 30 THz. The
bowtie antenna has a length of 4.89 m from end to end and a
gap of 300 nm. For the balanced spiral antenna the outer end to
the other outer end distance is 2.988 m, its strip width is 272
nm and the gap at the antenna aperture between arms is 314
nm. The trapezoidal antenna has a length of 4.25 m from end
to end, the gap is 150 nm and the ratio of two consecutive radii
of its arms was 0.7. The modified crossed dipole composed of
four parts with square shape of total length 3.44 m, width of
the strips is 200 nm and a gap between them is approximately
200 nm.

Antenna can be designed separate from the sensor itself,

which makes antenna tuning and optimization easier. Different
planar antennas such as dipole antennas [3], spiral antennas
[4]-[5], bowtie antennas and log-periodic antennas [5]-[6],
trapezoidal [7], microstrip patch [8] antennas have been made
studied to couple radiation into the sensor. These devices are
light weight, fast, CMOS compatible and use low power
which makes them suitable in various applications such as
thermal imaging, target detection, tracking, navigation in
autonomous vehicles and energy harvesting [8].
In this study, we designed our antennas at 30 THz simply
because at a normal daily temperature human body and other
mammals emit radiation at this frequency according to Wiens
displacement law. In addition, between 8 to 14 m there is a
gap at atmospheric opacity (atmospheric window) where
absorption is low [9].
We simulated four different types of antennas on a
grounded and ungrounded substrate. We designed bowtie,
balanced spiral, modified crossed dipole, and trapezoidal
antenna tuned to 30 THz and compared their results to each
other for performance metrics.
II.

ANTENNA GEOMETRY

Designs of four types of antennas are shown from their

front views in Fig. 1. The antennas are designed on top of a
SiO2 substrate ( s = 4.84 at 30 THz) with three different
thicknesses of 150 nm, 300 nm and 600 nm in a grounded

Figure 1. The front view of the antennas: bowtie (a),

balanced spiral (b), trapezoidal (c) and modified crossed
dipole (d).
III.

RESULTS

The design and simulation of antennas are performed by

1. The top
view of bowtiesoftwares
(A)
means of Figure
commercial
electromagnetic
CST
Microwave Studio. In order to observe the sensitivity of the
antennas in receiving mode the antennas are illuminated by a
plane wave. At the aperture of the antennas electric field
probes are placed to monitor the coupled fields sensitivity with
respect to its geometry. In all simulations results the
ungrounded antenna substrate is kept constant since it has no
significant effect on the sensitivity whereas for grounded

antennas a parameter sweep is performed for the dielectric

thickness. The electric fields measured at the antenna aperture
probes are depicted for bowtie in Fig. 2, balanced spiral in Fig.
3, trapezoidal in Fig. 4 and modified crossed dipole in Fig. 5.
For the bowtie antenna the results are best for an ungrounded
configuration and the result for a grounded configuration can
be optimized with choosing a thicker substrate. However the
trapezoidal antenna has a better sensitivity with grounded
configuration and thinner substrate whereas the sensitivity of
both antennas is comparable. The balanced spiral shows the
best performance in a grounded configuration with a 300 nm
substrate thickness. The modified crossed dipole show a better
performance than bowtie and trapezoidal but is worse than the
spiral antenna whereas the ground does not improve the
results.

Figure 5. Electric field values of the probe at the modified

crossed dipole antenna aperture.
IV.

CONCLUSION

Four different planar 30 THz antennas are designed and

their sensitivity is compared in a grounded and ungrounded
substrate with different thicknesses. The balanced spiral
antenna has the best sensitivity followed by the modified
crossed dipole antenna which performs better than the
trapezoidal and the bowtie whereas there is no significant
difference observed between the latter two antennas.
Figure 2. Electric field values of the probe at the bowtie
antenna aperture.

Figure 3. Electric field values of the probe at the balanced

spiral antenna aperture.

Figure 4. Electric field values of the probe at the

trapezoidal antenna aperture.

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