Exploiting hyperbolic metamaterial as a substrate for graphene surface plasmonic Cherenkov THz radiation source

Abstract

In this work, a graphene-dielectric multilayer hyperbolic metamaterial (GHMM) has been analyzed for the generation of THz Cherenkov radiation (CR) from graphene surface plasmonics (GSP), induced by a moving electron bunch. The structure under analysis consists of a graphene-dielectric multilayer HMM in which the top graphene layer is considered as an interface between air and the underlying multilayer as the substrate. The dispersion analysis of the structure shows the existence of bulk-HMM (BH) and non-bulk HMM (NBH)-region in the $$\omega$$ – $$k$$ space. The structure is found to generate intense CR from the GSP, when the operating point of the electron bunch lies in the BH-region, as the bulk states of the HMM substrate allows the efficient transformation of high-k GSP into THz-CR. The proposed structure can be exploited as a potential candidate for the development of low-voltage, electron beam-driven, ultra-tunable, compact graphene plasmonic Cherenkov THz radiation source. Moreover, the application of the principle of utilizing bulk states of HMM for CR generation has also been discussed for black phosphorous (BP), an emerging 2Dmaterial for the THz to infrared (IR) region.