Abstract-Optical field terahertz amplitude modulation by graphene nanoribbons

Hong Zhang,*^a   Yoshiyuki Miyamoto,^b   Xinlu Cheng^c and  Angel Rubio^def  

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2015/nr/c5nr05889a#!divAbstract

*

Corresponding authors

^a

College of Physical Science and Technology, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
E-mail: hongzhang@scu.edu.cn

^b

Nanomaterials Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Central 2, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba 305-8568, Japan

^c

Key Laboratory of High Energy Density Physics and Technology of Ministry of Education; Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

^d

Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg, Germany

^e

Nano-Bio Spectroscopy group, Universidad del País Vasco CFM CSIC-UPV/EHU-MPC DIPC, 20018 San Sebastian, Spain

^f

European Theoretical Spectroscopy Facility (ETSF)

Nanoscale, 2015, Advance Article

DOI: 10.1039/C5NR05889A






















In this study, first-principles time-dependent density functional theory calculations were used to demonstrate the possibility to modulate the amplitude of the optical electric field (E-field) near a semiconducting graphene nanoribbon. A significant enhancement of the optical E-field was observed 3.34 Å above the graphene nanoribbon sheet, with an amplitude modulation of approximately 100 fs, which corresponds to a frequency of 10 THz. In general, a six-fold E-field enhancement could be obtained, which means that the power of the obtained THz is about 36 times that of incident UV light. We suggest the use of semiconducting graphene nanoribbons for converting visible and UV light into a THz signal.