Graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures for emission and detection of terahertz radiation

This paper reviews recent advances in the research of graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures for emission and detection of terahertz radiation. A gated double-graphene-layer (DGL) nanocapacitor is the core shell under consideration, in which a thin tunnel barrier layer is sandwiched by outer graphene layers at both sides. The DGL can support symmetric optical and anti-symmetric acoustic coupled plasmon modes in the GLs. The latter mode can modulate the band-offset between the GL, giving rise to modulation of the inter-GL-layer resonant tunneling. This can dramatically enhance the THz gain or responsivity via plasmon-assisted inter-GL resonant tunneling.