Terahertz Plasmonic Structures Based on Spatially Varying Conductivities

Terahertz plasmonic structures are demonstrated in which the conductivity of the metallic film is varied spatially in order to further enhance the response. Using a commercially available inkjet printer, in which one cartridge is filled with conductive silver ink and a second cartridge is filled with resistive carbon ink, computer generated drawings of plasmonic structures are printed in which the individual printed dots can have differing amounts of the two inks, thereby creating a spatial variation in the conductivity. The silver ink has a DC conductivity that is only a factor of six lower than bulk silver, while the carbon ink acts as a lossy dielectric at THz frequencies. Both inks sinter at room temperature immediately after contact with the plastic film. Using a periodic array of subwavelength apertures as a test structure, patterns printed with different fractional amounts of the two inks show dramatically different enhanced optical transmission properties. These differences arise from changes in the propagation loss properties as a function of conductivity. This data is used to design and fabricate aperture arrays in which the conductivity varies spatially. The resulting plasmonic effect is found to dramatically alter the spatial beam profile of the transmitted THz radiation, as measured by THz imaging.