Masters Degrees (Physics)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (Physics) by Subject "Antennas (Electronics)"

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    Construction and characterization of a multi-antenna terahertz time-domain spectroscopy setup
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-04) Smith, Shane Raymond; Neethling, Pieter H.; Rohwer, Erich G.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Science. Dept. of Physics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Recent progress in laser and semiconductor technology has allowed for far easier generation and measuring of coherent terahertz radiation, a previously difficult region in the radiation spectrum to coherently generate. Time based terahertz spectroscopy is a rather unique form of spectroscopy. Not only is it time based, but the electric field is measured instead of the intensity. This allows for the measurement of the complex refractive index. From this one can obtain certain details of the structure and environment of the sample being studied. A terahertz time-domain spectroscopy setup was constructed during this project. This setup used low temperature grown GaAs photoconductive antennae, with multiple antenna size options available for both the receiving and transmitting antennae. After the construction and alignment of this setup, the antennae were characterized. Lastly measurements were performed on the background, sugar and silicon to demonstrate the capabilities of the system. It was found that the measured terahertz electric field amplitude increased with the intensity of the pump pulse and that the amplitude of the measured terahertz electric field was dependent on the polarization of the pump pulse. As the size of the antenna was increased so too did the amplitude of the measured electric field and conversely the bandwidth of the measured terahertz electric field decreased with the increase of antenna size. This held true for both the transmitting and receiving antennae.