Abstract-Terahertz harmonic generation in graphene

Samwel Sekwao¹ and Jean-Pierre Leburton^1,2,a)

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/106/6/10.1063/1.4908293?TRACK=RSS
1 Department of Physics and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
a) jleburto@illinois.edu
Appl. Phys. Lett. 106, 063109 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4908293

We show that charge carrier transport in graphene exhibits sharp resonances in the presence of spatially and temporarily modulated scattering. Resonances occur when the period of an applied a–c field corresponds to the time taken by quasi-ballistic carriers to drift over a spatialscattering period, provided the latter is shorter than the distance taken by carriers to emit an optic phonon. We show that such system can be achieved with interdigitated gates energized with an a–c bias on graphene layers. Gate separation and fields to achieve ballistic transport would result in resonances in the terahertz range, with the generation of higher harmonics characterized by large Q-factors, which are tunable with gate spacing.