Book Description
The Terahertz Band (0.1-10 THz) is envisioned as a key a wireless technology that will enable Terabit-per-second data rate, which is expected to become a reality within the next five years. One of the main problems of this technology is the lack of compact high-power signal sources in order to overcome the very high path loss. Novel plasmonic devices based on nanomaterials such as graphene are a new promising alternative capable to efficiently operate at THz frequencies. In this thesis, the performance of a graphene-based plasmonic device for on-chip direct generation, modulation, and detection of THz signals is proposed, modeled and simulated using a finite-difference-based multi-physics simulation platform, which can handle both hydrodynamic model equations and Maxwell's equations. The device is based on a gated High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) with graphene as the 2DEG channel, where a THz plasmonic signal is generated by implementing an asymmetric boundary condition at the source and drain. Moreover, this setup offers the possibility to modulate the generated signal by changing the applied current density.