Impact of Antenna Design on the Electric-Field Direction Sensitivity of Zero-Biased Y–Ba–Cu–O Detectors to Ultra-Short THz Pulses

Detectors made from sub-micron-sized bridges of the high- ${T}_{c}$ superconductor Y–Ba–Cu–O have unique properties useful for the detection of THz radiation, namely evidence of a detector response with an additional sensitivity to the direction of the electric field of short THz pulses when used without a transport current in the so-called “zero-bias” regime. In order to examine the influence of the antenna design on the detector response, we have conducted electromagnetic simulations and performed experiments at a synchrotron light source and with a photomixing setup as sources for short THz pulses. In this paper, we evaluate a narrow-band double-slot antenna as well as a broadband log-spiral antenna design.