In this paper, both fundamental SSP modes on a roofed metallic grating and its effective excitation of the bounded SSP mode by an injected electron beam on the structure are numerically examined and investigated in the THz regime. Apart from the bounded SSP mode on the metallic grating with open space, the introduced roofed metallic grating can generate a closed waveguide mode that occupies the dispersion region outside the light line. The closed waveguide mode shifts gradually to a higher frequency band with a decreased gap size, while the bounded SSP mode line becomes lower. The effective excitation of the bounded SSP mode on this roofed metallic grating is also implemented and studied by using a particle-in-cell simulation studio. The output SSP power spectrums with various gap sizes by the same electron beam on this roofed metallic grating are obtained and analyzed. The simulation results reveal that the generated SSP spectra show a slight red shift with a decreased gap size. This work on the excitation of the SSP mode using an electron beam can benefit the development of high-power compact THz radiation sources by utilizing the strong near-field confinement of SSPs on metallic gratings.
Keywords: electron beam; high-power excitation; leaky wave SSP mode; roofed metallic grating; spoof surface plasmons (SSPs); terahertz radiation source.