Terahertz Emission Enhancement of Gallium-Arsenide-Based Photoconductive Antennas with AAO-Patterned Gold Nanoparticles

We report on the enhancement of the terahertz (THz) emission characteristics of GaAs-based photoconductive antennas (PCAs) upon integration of AAO-patterned gold nanoparticles on the photoconducting antenna gap. The THz emission of the PCAs with gold nanoparticles was observed to increase up to 5.5 times compared to a reference PCA THz emitter. We tentatively attribute these enhancements to both plasmonic and non-plasmonic effects of the gold nanoparticles. The results demonstrate a cost-effective and feasible method of utilizing nanostructures to improve PCA performance.