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Broadband Terahertz Absorption in Graphene-Embedded Photonic Crystals

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Abstract

The absorption in graphene is rather low at terahertz frequencies. Here, we present a graphene-embedded photonic crystal structure to realize broadband terahertz absorption in graphene. The approach provides absorption enhancement in the whole terahertz regime (from 0.1 to 10 THz). It is shown that the average absorption in the graphene-embedded photonic crystal can be enhanced in the multiple propagating bands of the photonic crystals. The absorption efficiency can be further improved by optimizing the characteristic frequency, optical thickness ratio in a unit cell, and the angle of incidence on the photonic crystals. A maximum broadband absorption factor of 28.8% was achieved for fixed alternative dielectric materials. The graphene-embedded photonic crystal is promising for terahertz functional devices with broadband response.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grants No. 11674266, 11372248, 61505164, 11404213, 11674248, 11504034), the Program for Scientific Activities of Selected Returned Overseas Professionals in Shaanxi Province, the Shaanxi Project for Young New Star in Science and Technology (Grant No. 2015KJXX-11), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the Chongqing Research Program of Basic Research and Frontier Technology (Grant No. cstc2016jcyjA0186), and the Scientific and Technological Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (Grant No. KJ1600515).

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  1. Luqi Tu

    Present address: National Laboratory for Infrared Physics, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai, 200083, China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Space Applied Physics and Chemistry, Ministry of Education and Department of Applied Physics, School of Science, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710129, China

    Yuancheng Fan, Luqi Tu, Fuli Zhang & Quanhong Fu

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing, 400074, China

    Zhengren Zhang

  3. Key Laboratory of Advanced Micro-structure Materials (MOE) and Department of Physics, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Zeyong Wei & Hongqiang Li

  4. The Institute of Dongguan-Tongji University, Dongguan, 523808, Guangdong, China

    Zeyong Wei & Hongqiang Li

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Correspondence to Yuancheng Fan.

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Fan, Y., Tu, L., Zhang, F. et al. Broadband Terahertz Absorption in Graphene-Embedded Photonic Crystals. Plasmonics 13, 1153–1158 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-017-0615-0

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