Terahertz saturable absorbers from liquid phase exfoliation of graphite
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Saturable absorbers (SA) operating at terahertz (THz) frequencies can open new frontiers in the development of passively mode-locked THz micro-sources. Here we report the fabrication of THz SAs by transfer coating and inkjet printing single and few-layer graphene films prepared by liquid phase exfoliation of graphite. Open-aperture z-scan measurements with a 3.5 THz quantum cascade laser show a transparency modulation ∼80%, almost one order of magnitude larger than that reported to date at THz frequencies. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy provides evidence of intraband-controlled absorption bleaching. These results pave the way to the integration of graphene-based SA with electrically pumped THz semiconductor micro-sources, with prospects for applications where excitation of specific transitions on short time scales is essential, such as time-of-flight tomography, coherent manipulation of quantum systems, time-resolved spectroscopy of gases, complex molecules and cold samples and ultra-high speed communications, providing unprecedented compactness and resolution.
Date Issued
2017-06-15
Date Acceptance
2017-04-26
Citation
Nature Communications, 2017, 8
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Research (part of Springer Nature)
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Volume
8
Copyright Statement
© 2017 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you giveappropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the CreativeCommons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third partymaterial in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unlessindicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in thearticle’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutoryregulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly fromthe copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28643788
Subjects
MD Multidisciplinary
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
15763
Date Publish Online
2017-06-15