Terahertz Laser Combs in Graphene Field-Effect Transistors

Electrically injected terahertz (THz) radiation sources are extremely appealing, given their versatility and miniaturization potential, opening the venue for integrated-circuit THz technology. In this work, we show that coherent THz frequency combs in the range 0.5 THz < omega/2 pi < 10 THz can be generated, making use of graphene plasmonics. Our setup consists of a graphene field-effect transistor with asymmetric boundary conditions, with the radiation originating from a plasmonic instability that can be controlled by direct current injection. We put forward a combined analytical and numerical analysis of the graphene plasma hydrodynamics, showing that the instability can be experimentally controlled by the applied gate voltage and the injected current. Our calculations indicate that the emitted THz comb exhibits appreciable temporal coherence (g((1))(tau) > 0.6) and output irradiance (10(8) Wm(-2)). This makes our scheme an appealing candidate for a graphene-based THz laser source. Moreover, a mechanism for the instability amplification is advanced for the case of substrates with varying electric permittivity, which allows to overcome eventual limitations associated with the experimental implementation.