Nano-scale Development of Plasmonic Amplifiers Based on 2D Materials

Introduction

The library of 2D materials is growing at a rapid rate driven by the potential extraordinary electronic applications that they can offer. In parallel, terahertz (THz) technologies have continued to draw great interest due to the many applications that it can have a profound impact on, but it has continuously been hindered due to the low power and wide-scale applicability of current THz source technologies.

THz Surface Plasmonics

THz surface plasmonics is coming to the forefront as an area that can bridge these two emerging technologies and allow the necessary breakthrough that is needed in the so-called THz source gap region of 0.5 – 3 THz. In this project, the goal is to develop architectures that can efficiently amplify THz waves based on surface plasmons in 2D materials.

Amplification Mechanism

The fundamental attributes that underline this approach reside in the interaction between THz radiation and electrically driven surface plasmons, which provides amplification through an exchange of energy and momentum limited only by the properties of the gain medium. Thus, the limits of the amplification are governed by:

1. Limits to the electrical excitation of surface plasmons.
2. How well these surface plasmons couple to the THz radiation.

Materials and Methods

By utilizing novel 2D materials with extraordinary electrical properties based on Transition Metal Dichalcogenides (TMDs) and Transition Metal Monochalcogenides (TMMs), as well as traditional carbon-based materials such as graphene, we plan to stretch these limits and achieve groundbreaking results in terms of amplification and gain. This will be accomplished by incorporating the developed amplifiers into existing state-of-the-art Silicon – Germanium heterojunction bipolar (HBT) based THz arrays.

Consortium Collaboration

In the consortium led by THALES, leading experts from advanced research institutes, SMEs, and universities that specialize in the growth and modeling of 2D materials, as well as THz source development and characterization, have come together to achieve such a groundbreaking vision.