Graphene-based Antennas for Terahertz Systems: A Review

TL;DR

This review explores the development and potential of graphene-based antennas for terahertz systems, highlighting recent advancements, challenges, and future prospects in reconfigurable, miniaturized antenna technologies.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current graphene THz antenna designs, performance assessments, and discusses the impact of graphene's properties on future device functionalities.

Findings

Graphene enables reconfigurable and non-reciprocal THz antennas.

Current designs include resonant, leaky-wave, and reflectarray antennas.

Applications span transceivers, biosensors, and modulators.

Abstract

We review the use of graphene to develop reconfigurable, miniaturized, and efficient terahertz (THz) antennas and associated feeding networks, and attempt to identify current research trends and mid- and long-term challenges and prospects. We first discuss the state of the art in resonant, leaky-wave and reflectarray antennas, providing a critical assessment of their performance, limitations, and main challenges that remain to be addressed. Next, we examine different integrated feeding networks, including components such as switches, filters, and phase shifters, and we clarify the impact that graphene's intrinsic spatial dispersion may have in their performance. Our outlook clearly describes how graphene can bring exotic functionalities to all these devices, including quasi real-time reconfiguration capabilities and magnet-less non-reciprocal responses. Some exciting applications of THz antennas are then presented and discussed, including transceivers, biosensors, and first experimental realizations of detectors and modulators. We conclude by outlining our vision for the promising future of graphene-based THz antennas.