Wallis, R. and Degl'Innocenti, Riccardo and Jessop, D. S. and Mitrofanov, O. and Bledt, C. M. and Melzer, J. E. and Harrington, J. A. and Beere, H. E. and Ritchie, D. A. (2016) Investigation of hollow cylindrical metal terahertz waveguides suitable for cryogenic environments. Optics Express, 24 (26). pp. 30002-30014. ISSN 1094-4087
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
The field of terahertz (THz) waveguides continues to grow rapidly, with many being tailored to suit the specific demands of a particular final application. Here, we explore waveguides capable of enabling efficient and accurate power delivery within cryogenic environments (<4 K). The performance of extruded hollow cylindrical metal waveguides made of un-annealed and annealed copper, as well as stainless steel, have been investigated for bore diameters between 1.75 - 4.6 mm, and at frequencies of 2.0, 2.85 and 3.4 THz, provided by a suitable selection of THz quantum cascade lasers. The annealed copper resulted in the lowest transmission losses, <3 dB/m for a 4.6 mm diameter waveguide, along with 90° bending losses as low as ∼2 dB for a bend radius of 15.9 mm. The observed trends in losses were subsequently analyzed and related to measured inner surface roughness parameters. These results provide a foundation for the development of a wide array of demanding lowtemperature THz applications, and enabling the study of fundamental physics.