Abstract-Giant Terahertz-Wave Absorption by Monolayer Graphene in a Total Internal Reflection Geometry

Yoichi Harada, Muhammad Shoufie Ukhtary, Minjie Wang, Sanjay K. Srinivasan, Eddwi H. Hasdeo, Ahmad R.T. Nugraha, G. Timothy Noe, Yuji Sakai, Robert Vajtai, Pulickel M Ajayan, Riichiro Saito, and Junichiro Kono

ACS Photonics, Just Accepted Manuscript

DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.6b00663

Publication Date (Web): December 12, 2016

Copyright © 2016 American Chemical Society

http://pubsdc3.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsphotonics.6b00663

We experimentally demonstrated significant enhancement of terahertz-wave absorption in monolayer graphene by simply sandwiching monolayer graphene between two dielectric media in a total internal reflection geometry. In going through this structure, the evanescent wave of the incident terahertz beam interacts with the sandwiched graphene layer multiple (up to four) times at varying incidence angles. We observed extremely large attenuation (up to ~70% per reflection), especially for s-polarized radiation. The experimental results are quantitatively consistent with our calculations, where we modeled the experiment as an electromagnetic wave reflection process in monolayer graphene. We also derived analytical expressions for the absorptance, showing that the absorptance is proportional to the amount of Joule heating on the graphene surface induced by the terahertz radiation.

Abstract-Probing low-density carriers in a single atomic layer using terahertz parallel-plate waveguides

Manjakavahoaka. Razanoelina, Filchito Renee Bagsican, Iwao Kawayama, Xiang Zhang, Lulu Ma, Hironaru Murakami, Robert Vajtai, Pulickel M. Ajayan, Junichiro Kono, Masayoshi Tonouchi, 

https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-24-4-3885

As novel classes of two-dimensional (2D) materials and heterostructures continue to emerge at an increasing pace, methods are being sought for elucidating their electronic properties rapidly, non-destructively, and sensitively. Terahertz (THz) time-domain spectroscopy is a well-established method for characterizing charge carriers in a contactless fashion, but its sensitivity is limited, making it a challenge to study atomically thin materials, which often have low conductivities. Here, we employ THz parallel-plate waveguides to study monolayer graphene with low carrier densities. We demonstrate that a carrier density of ~2 × 1011 cm−2, which induces less than 1% absorption in conventional THz transmission spectroscopy, exhibits ~30% absorption in our waveguide geometry. The amount of absorption exponentially increases with both the sheet conductivity and the waveguide length. Therefore, the minimum detectable conductivity of this method sensitively increases by simply increasing the length of the waveguide along which the THz wave propagates. In turn, enabling the detection of low-conductivity carriers in a straightforward, macroscopic configuration that is compatible with any standard time-domain THz spectroscopy setup. These results are promising for further studies of charge carriers in a diverse range of emerging 2D materials.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

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Process for Producing Layered 2-D Materials Determines Their Electronic Properties

By Dexter Johnson

http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/process-for-producing-layered-2d-materials-determines-their-electronic-properties

This year, we’ve seen the emergence of different types of transistors being produced entirely from layered two-dimensional (2-D) materials featuring the dichalcogenides, tungsten diselenide (WSe2) and molybdenum disulfide(MoS2). Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois produced a transparent thin-film transistor (TFT) with WSe2 as the semiconducting layer, graphene for the electrodes, and hexagonal boron nitride as the insulator. At about the same time, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California built an all 2-D transistor that took the shape of a field emission transistor (FET), with MoS2 as the semiconducting layer.

Now, in a collaborative effort, researchers at Rice University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and Pennsylvania State University have developed a novel method for producing these hybrid layered 2-D structures. Their technique, they report, provides a high degree of control on how the resulting devices perform.

In research published in the journal Nature Materials, the researchers demonstrated how, by altering the temperature the materials are exposed to during the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process used to produce these 2-D layered devices, they could yield either an in-plane monolayer composite, which has a small but stable band gap, or a stacked layered hybrid, which exhibits enhanced photoluminescence. At high temperatures, the researchers got vertically stacked bilayers of MoS2 and WSe2, with the tungsten on top. At lower temperatures, the two 2-D materials grew side by side.

“With the advent of 2-D layered materials, people are trying to build artificial structures using graphene and now dichalcogenides as building blocks,” said Pulickel Ajayan of Rice University in a press release. “We show that depending on the conditions, we can combine two dichalcogenides to grow either in-plane hybrid or in stacks.”

“What’s even more interesting is that the layered structure has a particular lock-in stacking order,” said Wu Zhou of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the news release. “When you stack 2-D materials by transferring layers, there’s no way to control their orientation to one another. That impacts their electronic properties. In this paper, we demonstrate that in a certain window, we can get a particular stacking order during growth, with a particular orientation.”

Ajayan has characterized the development as “pixel engineering” because atomically thin semiconductors could be manipulated in production so that their potential uses in optoelectronics are almost limitless.

“We should be able to tweak certain regions to control certain functions, like light or terahertz emission,” said Rice's Robert Vajtai, another of the study's coauthors, in the release. “The whole idea, really, is to create domains with different electronic characters within a single layer.”

Abstract-High-Contrast Terahertz Wave Modulation by Gated Graphene Enhanced by Extraordinary Transmission through Ring Apertures

Weilu Gao , Jie Shu , Kimberly Reichel , Daniel V. Nickel , Xiaowei He , Gang Shi , Robert Vajtai ,Pulickel M Ajayan , Junichiro Kono , Daniel M. Mittleman , and Qianfan Xu

Nano Lett., Just Accepted Manuscript

DOI: 10.1021/nl4041274

Publication Date (Web): February 3, 2014

Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl4041274

Gate-controllable transmission of terahertz (THz) radiation makes graphene a promising material for making high-speed THz wave modulators. However, to date, graphene-based THz modulators have exhibited only small on/off ratios due to small THz absorption in single-layer graphene. Here we demonstrate a ~50% amplitude modulation of THz waves with gated single-layer graphene by the use of extraordinary transmission through metallic ring apertures placed right above the graphene layer. The extraordinary transmission induced ~7 times near-filed enhancement of THz absorption in graphene. These results promise CMOS-compatible THz modulators with tailored operation frequencies, large on/off ratios, and high speeds, ideal for applications in THz communications, imaging, and sensing.