Antenna-Coupled Graphene Field-Effect Transistors as a Terahertz Imaging Array

Terahertz radiation is extremely suitable for various imaging applications. In real life, these range from food or pharmaceutical quality control to illegal materials or human security control inspections. Despite its great potential, the wide usage and commercialization of terahertz imaging systems are still limited by the lack of compact technologies. The emerging graphene-based devices can efficiently contribute to fill this gap, offering higher versatility, scalability, and superior electronic properties compared to conventional semiconductors. In this work, we study a new scheme for realizing a multielement terahertz sensor, which is capable of multipixel parallel detection. The array consists of linearly distributed antenna-coupled graphene field-effect transistors, which are realized by exploiting a deterministic growth by chemical vapor deposition of single-crystal graphene. This novel growth technique ensures high material quality and offers large adaptability to different electronic device architectures. Relatively uniform terahertz detection performances (with a maximum homogeneity degree of 80%) were obtained with a maximum responsivity of the order of 1 V/W and an estimated response time in the picosecond scale. These detectors have demonstrated to fulfill several main requirements for image sensors (pixel uniformity, operability, and scalability), becoming very promising candidates for the realization of commercial high-resolution room-temperature terahertz cameras.

Automated summary

Terahertz radiation is well-suited for various imaging applications, but the lack of compact technologies hinders its wide usage and commercialization. Graphene-based devices offer a solution with higher versatility and scalability. This study introduces a new scheme for a multielement terahertz sensor capable of multipixel parallel detection, showing relatively uniform terahertz detection performances and becoming promising candidates for commercial high-resolution room-temperature terahertz cameras.