abstract

• The practical application of optical antennas in detection devices strongly depends on its ability to produce an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio for the given task. It is known that, due to the intrinsic problems arising from its sub-wavelength dimensions, optical antennas produce very small signals. The quality of these signals depends on the involved transduction mechanism. The contribution of different types of noise should be adapted to the transducer and to the signal extraction regime. Once noise is evaluated and measured, the specific detectivity, D∗, becomes the parameter of interest when comparing the performance of antenna coupled devices with other detectors. However, this parameter involves some magnitudes that can be defined in several ways for optical antennas. In this contribution we are interested in the evaluation and comparison of D∗ values for several bolometric optical antennas working in the infrared and involving two materials. At the same time, some material and geometrical parameters involved in the definition of noise and detectivity will be discussed to analyze the suitability of D∗ to properly account for the performance of optical antennas. © 2015 SPIE.

authors

• Alda J.
• Cuadrado A.
• Ezquerro J.M.
• González Contreras Francisco Javier
• López-Alonso J.M.
• Martinez-Anton J.C.

publication date

• 2015-01-01

published in

• Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering  Proceedings

keywords

• bolometers; detectivity; figures of merit; infrared detectors; noise; optical antennas Antennas; Bolometers; Geometry; Infrared detectors; Nanostructures; Optical instruments; Plasmons; Signal to noise ratio; Antenna-coupled devices; Detectivity; Figures of merits; noise; Optical antennas; Signal extraction; Specific detectivity; Transduction mechanism; Optical properties

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1117/12.2187926

start page

end page

volume

• 9547