Characterization of subwavelength plastic fiber utilizing terahertz time-domain spectroscopy

We present the first characterization of a simple subwavelength-diameter plastic wire by using wideband terahertz timedomain spectroscopy. The propagation characteristics including waveguide dispersion, group velocity, and attenuation constant of various plastic wires with different diameters and refractive indices are studied. The experimental results show the subwavelength plastic wire has extremely low waveguide dispersion and low attenuation constant (<0.01cm-1) at its THz transmission band due to much reduced fractional power delivered inside the lossy core, which is consistent with the theoretical calculations. With the large evanescent-fields, the subwavelength plastic wire has capability to integrate with micro-fluid channel for sensitive bio-sensing applications.