Graphene Antennas: Can Integration and Reconfigurability Compensate for the Loss?

TL;DR

This paper reviews the potential of graphene antennas, highlighting that while microwave applications face efficiency challenges, terahertz frequencies enable highly reconfigurable antennas due to graphene's plasmonic properties.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of graphene antenna performance across microwave to terahertz frequencies, emphasizing reconfigurability at terahertz.

Findings

Microwave graphene antennas have limited efficiency but are suitable for specific applications.

Terahertz graphene antennas exhibit high reconfigurability due to plasmonic effects.

Efficiency at microwave frequencies is constrained, but terahertz applications benefit from unique properties.

Abstract

In this opening presentation we will first recall the main characteristics of graphene conductivity and electromagnetic wave propagation on graphene-based structures. Based on these observations and different graphene antenna simulations from microwave to Terahertz, we will discuss the issue of antenna efficiency, integration and reconfigurability, as function of the operation frequency range. While the applicability of graphene for antennas at microwave appears limited to particular cases where very low efficiency can be tolerated for integration or transparency purpose, the plasmonic nature of graphene conductivity at terahertz frequency allows unprecedented antenna properties and in particular efficient dynamic reconfiguration.