Experimental Investigation of Graphene Layers as 2D Nanoelectrode for Continuous Wave Terahertz Generation

Abstract

The effect of using graphene as 2D nanoelectrode for continuous wave (CW) terahertz (THz) photomixers were investigated. The multilayer graphene (6–8 and 3–5 MLG) sheets were used as six-finger interdigital nanoelectrodes on a low- temperature-grown (LTG) GaAs photoconductor. The MLG nanoelectrode shows unique properties with high short-circuit current capabilities and reliable high photocurrents. The number of graphene layers play a big role on the electrical and the optical properties of graphene nanoelectrode. In one hand, a thinner graphene increases the transparency of the nanoelectrodes to improve the power conversion efficiency, and on the other hand, a thicker graphene is required to carry high current densities and enhance the photomixer performance.