Tunable surface plasmon instability leading to emission of radiation
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Hunter College of the City University of New York, 695 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10065 (United States)
- Air Force Research Laboratory, Space Vehicles Directorate, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico 87117 (United States)
- Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185 (United States)
We propose a new approach for energy conversion from a dc electric field to tunable terahertz emission based on hybrid semiconductors by combining two-dimensional (2D) crystalline layers and a thick conducting material with possible applications for chemical analysis, security scanning, medical (single-molecule) imaging, and telecommunications. The hybrid nano-structure may consist of a single or pair of sheets of graphene, silicene, or a 2D electron gas. When an electric current is passed through a 2D layer, we discover that two low-energy plasmon branches exhibit a characteristic loop in their dispersion before they merge into an unstable region beyond a critical wave vector q{sub c}. This finite q{sub c} gives rise to a wavenumber cutoff in the emission dispersion of the surface plasmon induced instability and emission of radiation (spiler). However, there is no instability for a single driven layer far from the conductor, and the instability of an isolated pair of 2D layers occurs without a wavenumber cutoff. The wavenumber cutoff is found to depend on the conductor electron density, layer separation, distances of layers from the conductor surface, and the driving-current strength.
- OSTI ID:
- 22494700
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Applied Physics Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 118; ISSN JAPIAU; ISSN 0021-8979
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BIOMEDICAL RADIOGRAPHY
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTRIC FIELDS
ELECTRON DENSITY
ELECTRON GAS
EMISSION
ENERGY CONVERSION
GRAPHENE
LAYERS
NANOSTRUCTURES
PLASMA INSTABILITY
RADIATIONS
SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIALS
SILICENE
THZ RANGE