Future Trends in Microelectronics: From Nanophotonics to Sensors to Energy

Graphene-Based Terahertz Devices: Concepts and Characteristics

V. Ryzhii, M. Ryzhii, A. Satou, and N. Ryabova

CNEL, University of Aizu, Aizu-Wakamatsu 965-8580, Japan

T. Otsuji

RIEC, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan

V. Mitin

Dept. of Electrical Engineering, SUNY-Buffalo, Buffalo 14260, U.S.A.

F. T. Vasko

Institute of Semiconductor Physics NAS, Kiev 03028, Ukraine

A. A. Dubinov and V. Y. Aleshkin

Institute for Physics of Microstructures RAS, Nizhny Novgorod 603950, Russia

M. S. Shur

Dept. of ECSE, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy 12180, U.S.A.

1.   Introduction

Graphene, i.e. a monolayer of carbon atoms densely packed in a two-dimensional honeycomb structure, graphene bilayers, and patterned graphene structures have captured the great interest of researchers and device engineers. Modification of a laterally uniform graphene layer (GL) into an array of nanostrips, which are usually referred to as graphene nanoribbons, results in the transformation of two-dimensional (2D) linear electron and hole gapless energy spectra into sets of one-dimensional (1D) subbands accompanied by the appearance of an energy gap. Graphene bilayers also exhibit the gapless energy spectra, but with the dispersion relations close to parabolic ones. In a transverse electric field, the energy gap opens and the electron and hole dispersion relations are modified.

Due to the features of the electron and hole energy spectra, particularly their massless, neutrino-like form, as well as of the scattering ...