Antenna-integrated silicon-plasmonic graphene sub-terahertz emitter

Abstract

Photo-mixing with its advantages of ultra-large bandwidth and precise tunability has emerged as an important technique for terahertz (THz) wave generation. Recently, graphene photodetectors exhibiting a large bandwidth are expected to further boost the development of integrated THz emitters. Here, we fabricate a sub-THz emitter based on a large-bandwidth silicon-plasmonic graphene (SPG) photodetector integrated with a broadband rounded bow-tie THz antenna. The SPG sub-THz emitter is experimentally demonstrated to emit sub-THz waves with a radiation spectrum from 50 to 300 GHz. A maximum sub-THz emission power of 5.4 nW is obtained at 145 GHz with only 3 mW input light power. The SPG sub-THz emitter can be fabricated by a CMOS-compatible process, which offers enormous opportunities for its use in a variety of THz applications.