Terahertz optics with graphene and nanostructured materials

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• Miss Shruti Badhwar (University of Cambridge, Semiconductor Physics Group)
• Wednesday 12 June 2013, 14:00-15:15
• Mott Seminar Room, Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Teri Bartlett.

Plasmonics in graphene has recently received wide attention in the optics community. This is because the bound electromagnetic modes (plasmons) are tightly confined to the surface and can also be tuned with carrier concentration. Interestingly, with a doping of the order of 1012- 1013 cm-2 that can be achieved with external gates, the plasmon resonance in graphene appears in the infrared (IR) and terahertz (THz) range.

In this talk, I will explore the key question – how does graphene absorption and hence any THz plasmon resonance in graphene evolve with doping, type of carriers and spatial distribution of carriers induced by the external gate? An understanding of the physical mechanism, correlating the spectra with the type and spatial distribution of charge carriers is necessary and fundamental to the development of THz optical elements using graphene.

I will then describe how the gate tunability of transmission through graphene can be applied to develop THz modulators. For example, we can indirectly modulate the THz beam emitted from a quantum cascade laser, which is a compact, unipolar electrically driven source of THz radiation.

While graphene holds promise for most THz optical elements such as filters, modulators and detectors, there is still a need to realize a compact room temperature THz source for an integrated THz optical system. I will finally describe how nanostructuring quantum cascade lasers might hold an answer to this question.

This talk is part of the Semiconductor Physics Group Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Cavendish Laboratory Seminars
• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• Featured lists
• ME Seminar
• Mott Seminar Room, Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics
• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• School of Physical Sciences
• Semiconductor Physics Group Seminars
• Thin Film Magnetic Talks

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