Sinusoidally-Modulated Graphene Leaky-Wave Antenna for Electronic Beamscanning at THz

TL;DR

This paper introduces a graphene-based leaky-wave antenna capable of electronically steering beams at terahertz frequencies, using sinusoidal modulation of surface reactance for dynamic control.

Contribution

It presents a novel design of a graphene leaky-wave antenna with sinusoidal reactance modulation enabling electronic beamscanning at THz frequencies.

Findings

Achieved dynamic beam steering by adjusting bias voltages.

Demonstrated promising performance using realistic material parameters.

Potential for integration into reconfigurable THz transceivers and sensors.

Abstract

This paper proposes the concept, analysis and design of a sinusoidally-modulated graphene leaky-wave antenna with beam scanning capabilities at a fixed frequency. The antenna operates at terahertz frequencies and is composed of a graphene sheet transferred onto a back-metallized substrate and a set of polysilicon DC gating pads located beneath it. In order to create a leaky-mode, the graphene surface reactance is sinusoidally-modulated via graphene's field effect by applying adequate DC bias voltages to the different gating pads. The pointing angle and leakage rate can be dynamically controlled by adjusting the applied voltages, providing versatile beamscanning capabilities. The proposed concept and achieved performance, computed using realistic material parameters, are extremely promising for beamscanning at THz frequencies, and could pave the way to graphene-based reconfigurable transceivers and sensors.