Smart Metal-Graphene Hybrid Reflectarray at THz Frequencies

Background:

In order to continue the exponential rise in wireless data rates, terabit-per-second links are expected to become a reality within the next five years.  The exploration of higher frequency bands, specifically the Terahertz band, is needed to supply exceptionally large transmission bandwidths.  To accompany the creation of THz sources, detectors, and antennas, modulators are needed to embed information on the transmitted signal.

Technology Overview:

Four elements have been designed to work in tangent: (1) the plasmonic source that creates the initial THz signal; (2) the plasmonic phase modulator that encodes the signal; (3) the plasmonic nano-antenna that radiates the signal into free space; and (4) the multi-input multi-output MIMO that reflects the signal around walls.  In the proposed system, all the blocks share the same graphene layer; there are no interfaces between blocks, therefore, no losses as the signals go through the elements.

Advantages:

Phase modulation is more noise resistant than amplitude and frequency modulation.  Propagation speed is easily controlled by modifying chemical potential of the graphene layer.  Modulation depth is increased compared to previous graphene based modulators creating a lower symbol error rate (SER).  The current device can comfortably modulate the signals at least at 10% of their carrier frequency, up to 33% of their carrier frequency.  For example, for a 1 THz system, we can modulate at least at 100 GHz and up to 300 GHz approximately.

Applications:

Wireless communication: 6G, HetNets, Autonomous vehicles

Intellectual Property Summary:

US Patent Application 17/804,446 filed May 27, 2022

Stage of Development:

TRL 2

Licensing Status:

Available for license or collaboration.