Study of single-cycle pulse propagation inside a terahertz near-field probe

Propagation of 0.5 THz single cycle pulses inside an aperture-type near-field probe is studied. The E-field amplitude attenuation is experimentally measured at various distances from the aperture. Numerical simulations based on a two-dimensional model illustrate the pulse waveform transformation and the spectral blueshift, which is experimentally observed. The study shows that the sensitivity of such a near-field probe can be improved by more than a factor of 10 by decreasing the aperture-to-detector separation without reduction of the spatial resolution. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.