An investigation on THz antennas using graphene as a substrate

Substrate material is one of the key elements that ultimately determine the performance of a terahertz (THz) photoconductive antenna. There have been many research activities in developing/identifying the right substrate materials for THz photoconductive antenna capable of generating high-power and broadband THz radiations. In this work, we present the concept and analysis of using graphene as a potential substrate material in a THz photoconductive antenna. The THz antenna performances using both graphene and GaAs are compared. It was found that the radiated power and the conversion efficiency of graphene-based THz photoconductive antennas can be six times larger than that of GaAs-based photoconductive antennas because graphene has extremely high electron mobility.