Photocurrent-based detection of Terahertz radiation in graphene

Abstract

Graphene is a promising candidate for the development of detectors of Terahertz (THz) radiation. A well-known detection scheme due to Dyakonov and Shur exploits the confinement of plasma waves in a field-effect transistor (FET), whereby a dc photovoltage is generated in response to a THz field. This scheme has already been experimentally studied in a graphene FET [L. Vicarelli et al., Nature Mat. 11, 865 (2012)]. In the quest for devices with a better signal-to-noise ratio, we theoretically investigate a plasma-wave photodetector in which a dc photocurrent is generated in a graphene FET. The rectified current features a peculiar change of sign when the frequency of the incoming radiation matches an even multiple of the fundamental frequency of plasma waves in the FET channel. The noise equivalent power per unit bandwidth of our device is shown to be much smaller than that of a Dyakonov-Shur detector in a wide spectral range.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• The electronic properties of graphene
• Graphene plasmonics
• Graphene field effect transistors as room-temperature Terahertz detectors
• Theory of the plasma-wave photoresponse of a gated graphene sheet
• Collisionless Hydrodynamics of Doped Graphene in a Magnetic Field

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Resonant Terahertz Detection Using Graphene Plasmons
• Graphene based functional devices: A short review
• Graphene vertical hot-electron terahertz detectors
• Giant ratchet magneto-photocurrent in graphene lateral superlattices
• Metallic Carbon Nanotube Quantum Dots with Broken Symmetries as a Platform for Tunable Terahertz Detection
• Cyclotron- and magnetoplasmon resonances in bilayer graphene ratchets
• THz Photodetector using sideband-modulated transport through surface states of a 3D Topological Insulator
• Singularity-enhanced terahertz detection in high-mobility field-effect transistors