Terahertz bow-tie antenna-coupled bolometer impedance matching by transmission line matching network

The advancement of wireless technology has revolutionized the legacy microwave spectrum into dense and nearly-fully occupied frequencies. Usage of the higher frequency spectrum is necessary to fulfill the increasingly more speed and low latency communication system. Terahertz (THz) frequency is one of the encouraging alternatives, yielding higher bandwidth capacity, data rates, and intrusion-free from other occupied frequency spectra for the next generation applications such as 5G communication. A considered challenging issue in THz regime development is to provide efficient generation and detection of THz waves. Its particular characteristic between electronic and optical domain and tiny wavelength creates its own complexity in designing THz source and detector. A bolometer as one of the THz wave detector can be chosen to detect THz waves and convert it into heat form. In this research, we studied a bowtie antenna-coupled bolometer as a THz wave receiver. A transmission line method is introduced to improve the impedance matching between bolometer and bowtie antenna. The analysis is taken by considering the surface current and dissipated energy on the bolometer with various transmission line lengths to obtain optimum energy absorption. One THz plane waves propagate on the proposed design simulated using CST Microwave Studio simulation system. The simulation results show that the transmission line length of 9 μm can increase the surface current and dissipated power by a factor of 81% and 13%, respectively, compared to the initial design. The results show that a proper configuration for the antenna length and transmission line is necessary for a maximum energy transfer from the antenna to bolometer.