Graphene Device Tunes Terahertz Light
Graphene which is touted as the world's magic material is now used in another device. It will now help us in controlling light at terahertz frequency. Berkeley scientists have shown how the light at Terahertz frequencies can now be tuned accurately with the use of this substance.  The paper in this regard titled #-Link-Snipped-# is authored by Long Ju,  Baisong Geng, Jason Horng, Caglar Girit, Michael Martin.
#-Link-Snipped-#
Image Credit: Lawrence Berkeley Lab
Graphene is already a wonder material among the nanotechnology community who have made many discoveries and inventions using it. The scientists from Berkeley lab have made this device with Graphene ribbons which are not more than a few millionths of a meter in width. The width is so narrow because Graphene in itself is around an atom thick. The concept of controlling and tuning the light of Terahertz frequency revolves around varying the width of these ribbons. By varying the width we are actually trying to control the oscillations and concentration of the atoms within the ribbon. The collective oscillations of all the atoms in Micro-ribbons are called Plasmon.
In normal course of action for high frequency lights, the Plasmon happen in 3D. The material 'Graphene' being only an atom thick exists in 2D only. Hence the Plasmon in Graphene is restricted to 2D. However unlike 3D, the Plasmon happens at much lower frequencies. When the light of same frequency as that of Plasmon interacts with them, we observe a phenomenon called Resonant Excitation. So we can have a range of light getting tune as we can vary the width of these ribbons.
We can also vary the strength of the light and Plasmon interaction by changing the electric field which is applied while conducting this experiment. This being just an initial step forward now, a lot of progress is expected in this field. Until now, it was not possible due to not so advanced technology. Let us hope that we will soon see Graphene based devices with which we can manipulate the light of much higher spectrum.
#-Link-Snipped-#
Image Credit: Lawrence Berkeley Lab
Graphene is already a wonder material among the nanotechnology community who have made many discoveries and inventions using it. The scientists from Berkeley lab have made this device with Graphene ribbons which are not more than a few millionths of a meter in width. The width is so narrow because Graphene in itself is around an atom thick. The concept of controlling and tuning the light of Terahertz frequency revolves around varying the width of these ribbons. By varying the width we are actually trying to control the oscillations and concentration of the atoms within the ribbon. The collective oscillations of all the atoms in Micro-ribbons are called Plasmon.
In normal course of action for high frequency lights, the Plasmon happen in 3D. The material 'Graphene' being only an atom thick exists in 2D only. Hence the Plasmon in Graphene is restricted to 2D. However unlike 3D, the Plasmon happens at much lower frequencies. When the light of same frequency as that of Plasmon interacts with them, we observe a phenomenon called Resonant Excitation. So we can have a range of light getting tune as we can vary the width of these ribbons.
We can also vary the strength of the light and Plasmon interaction by changing the electric field which is applied while conducting this experiment. This being just an initial step forward now, a lot of progress is expected in this field. Until now, it was not possible due to not so advanced technology. Let us hope that we will soon see Graphene based devices with which we can manipulate the light of much higher spectrum.
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