Numerical analysis of the propagation properties of subwavelength semiconductor slit in the terahertz region.

The propagation properties of terahertz (THz) waves passing through heavily doped semiconductor slit have been numerically investigated by using the transfer matrix method. The effects of geometrical parameters, carrier concentration, and dielectric materials filling in the slit have been considered. The contour for carrier concentration and slit width show that as slit width and carrier concentration decreases, the effective indices increase and the propagation lengths decrease. For the case of water filling in the slit, temperature has more effect on the imaginary part of propagation constant than the real part. Most of the energy stored in the slit is in the form of electric energy, which firstly decreases and then increases with the decreasing of slit width. It is expected that the semiconductor slit structure is very useful for the practical applications of THz waves in the fields of biological specimen analysis and medical diagnosis.