Graphene-Gold Structure to Amplify Terahertz Waves
Overview
A German-Spanish team of researchers worked on a metamaterial structure that allows for the conversion of high-end Gigahertz frequencies to Terahertz frequency waves and allows for amplification of terahertz waves as well. This metamaterial structure is comprised of a graphene base coated with gold lamellae bars. This material structure uses properties of nonlinear optics to increase the incoming frequencies, the gold lamellae coating on the graphene structure provides an enhancement to both the magnetic and electric field of the incoming signal to increase the frequency without altering the message signal. This phenomenon is caused by the nonlinear optical properties of the graphene base as well as the lamella shape bars.
This research proves helpful in implementing terahertz frequencies to everyday devices since this is a compact method of generating terahertz frequency waves. This photonic structure can be implemented into everyday technologies to enable 5G communication.
Related Links
Article: Material System to Generate Terahertz Waves
Article: Grating-Graphene Metamaterial as a Platform for Terahertz Nonlinear Optics