Proceedings of the 44th European Microwave Conference
Exploitation of graphene as HIS and RIS for devices
in the MW and THz frequency ranges
Martino Aldrigo, Mircea Dragoman
MIMOMEMS
IMT
Bucharest, Romania
{martino.aldrigo;mircea.dragoman}@imt.ro
Abstract—Graphene has become an outstanding material for
revolutionary wireless applications in the microwave and
terahertz/infrared frequency ranges. Due to its unique physical
characteristics, a family of completely new devices can be
developed by exploiting graphene’s behaviour as High
Impedance Surface (HIS) or highly-Reactive Impedance Surface
(RIS). In this paper we theoretically investigate first a 10 GHz-
resonant gold dipole antenna suspended over a graphene flake
acting as a HIS reflector: the radiator can be placed at a very
close distance from the graphene ground by keeping at the same
time very good radiation performance with respect to classical
metal reflectors. Second, we consider a gold dipole antenna
operating at 10 THz directly attached to a graphene layer.
Excellent radiation performance can be achieved thanks to the
highly-inductive surface impedance of graphene at such high
frequencies. An in-depth description of the possibility of varying
graphene’s conductivity by means of an applied gate voltage is
provided, thus demonstrating how radiating properties can be
tuned by simply applying a proper voltage to the reflector.
Hence, the proposed antennas can be considered in reason as the
starting point for innovative graphene-based mm- and μm-
systems with unique tunability properties.
Keywords—Graphene; high impedance surface; reactive
impedance surface; antenna
I. INTRODUCTION
Graphene is in reason considered as the “silicon of the 21st
century” for its unusual physical properties at microwave
(MW) and terahertz/infrared (THz/IR) frequencies, together
with the possibility of exploiting it in many engineering
systems. Graphene is a flat monolayer of carbon atoms tightly
packed into a two-dimensional (2D) honeycomb lattice whose
surface conductivity (and, consequently, impedance) can be
easily tuned by applying a proper gate voltage. This fact is of
outstanding importance, since it entails that graphene acts
naturally as a High Impedance Surface (HIS) [1], of the
resistive- or reactive (inductive)-type according to the
frequency range of interest. A HIS is an electromagnetic band
gap material traditionally made of a periodic pattern of metallic
cells connected to a ground plane by means of metal vias [2].
Thus, surface waves (causing multipath interference and back-
radiation) and image currents can be suppressed or, at least,
strongly reduced The most significant drawback of such a
structure is that the propagation of surface waves is prohibited
978-2-87487-035-4 © 2014 EuMA
Alessandra Costanzo, Diego Masotti
DEI
University of Bologna
Bologna, Italy
{alessandra.costanzo;diego.masotti}@unibo.it
only in a narrow bandwidth near the cell resonance, hence a
HIS needs to be periodically textured to achieve a broadband
behaviour. Graphene’s unique physical characteristics allow to
exploit it as a naturally-broadband HIS from MW up to THz/IR
frequencies by simply applying a gate voltage to obtain the
desired value of conductivity for the application under test. At
MW frequencies, graphene’s surface impedance is mostly
resistive and this provides an excellent reflector for low-profile
antennas with enhanced radiation properties with respect to all
other metal reflectors. When considering THz/IR frequencies,
graphene becomes a 2D material with a strongly-inductive
surface impedance, thus allowing to design antennas with
completely different properties from their MW counterparts.
Nevertheless, the reflector-type behaviour is still preserved and
it also offers the possibility to easily integrate antennas with
graphene nonlinear devices (diodes or FETs) in order to obtain
a complete THz receiver for detection/imaging or (in
perspective) energy-harvesting systems. In Section II, an
overall view of the main physical characteristics of graphene is
presented; then, in Section III, a detailed description of a 10
GHz-resonant gold dipole antenna suspended over a graphene
layer is provided, together with design rules to maximize its
radiation performance; finally, in Section IV, the properties of
a gold dipole antenna and of a gold bow-tie antenna operating
at 10 THz and directly attached to a graphene flake are
discussed.
II. GRAPHENE’S CONDUCTIVITY AND SURFACE
IMPEDANCE: A NEW PATH TOWARDS TUNABLE HIS AND RIS
Graphene’s conductivity can be expressed by the Kubo
formula and consists of two terms taking into account the
intraband and the interband contributions, as follows [3]:
σ = σ intraband + σ interband
⎛ μ ⎛ − μc ⎞⎞ (1)
e2 K T ⎜ c + 2 ln⎜ e K BT + 1⎟ ⎟
σ intraband = − j 2 B
π= (ω − j 2Γ ) ⎜ K BT ⎜
⎝
⎟⎟
⎠⎠
⎝
2 ⎛ 2 μ − (ω − j 2Γ )= ⎞
e
σ interband = − j ln⎜ c ⎟.
4π= ⎜⎝ 2 μ c + (ω − j 2Γ )= ⎟⎠
In Eq. (1), e is the electron charge, KB is the Boltzmann’s
constant, T is the temperature, Γ is the scattering rate
independent of energy and μc is the chemical potential. In
particular, the latter quantity can be tuned by changing the
355 6 -9 Oct 2014, Rome, Italy
initial doping of graphene (hence, type and density of charge σ ′g = ωε 0 ε ′g′
carriers) or by applying an external field. Furthermore we can (4)
express Γ and μc as σ ′g′ = ωε 0 (1 − ε ′g )
ωμ 0 μ r
Γ=
1
,τ =
μE F
, μ c ≈ eαVb (2) Z g = (1 + j )
τ ev F2 2σ g

where τ is the scattering time (which is related to the slope Fig. 2 displays the computed values for Zg in the band 9.38÷30
between the imaginary and the real part of the surface THz. As expected, it exhibits a slight inductive behaviour.
impedance), μ is the charge carriers mobility (which can reach
100000 cm2·V–1·s–1 at room temperature for graphene), EF is Real part Imaginary part
the Fermi energy, vF is the Fermi velocity (which is equal to the 55 18000
propagating velocity of charge carriers in the case of 50 16000
graphene), α is a constant depending on the geometry of the 14000
45
graphene device and Vb is the bias (gate) voltage. Hence,

Im{Zs} (Ω)
Re{Zs} (Ω)
12000
graphene’s conductivity is a complex quantity σ=σ′+jσ″ in 40 10000
which the real and imaginary parts of the two contributions 35 8000
(intraband and interband) play different roles. In detail, in the 6000
30
absence of applied magnetic field, the intraband term 4000
25 2000
dominates over the interband one up to about 30 THz. Indeed,
defining graphene’s surface impedance as 20 0
0 10 20 30
1
Z s (Vb ) = = Rs (Vb ) + jX s (Vb ) (3)
Frequency (THz)
σ (Vb )
Fig. 1. Real and imaginary part of graphene’s surface impedance in the
it can be seen that at MW frequencies Zs is for most resistive, 0.1÷30 THz frequency band for T=300 K, Γ=0.11 meV and μc=0.13 eV.
values of Rs attaining the range 50÷1000 Ω, while in the THz
band (up to 30 THz) an inductive-type Xs is dominating and
can reach some tens of kΩ. This entails that at MW graphene is
a natural HIS, whereas at THz it exhibits a RIS-like behaviour. Real part Imaginary part
In both case, by the simple application of a gate voltage it is 0.60 6
possible to tune Zs in order to achieve the desired performance 0.59
0.58 5
of the device under test. Moreover, in the THz band Zs shows,
0.57

Im{Zg} (Ω)
Re{Zg} (Ω)

as stated above, a highly-inductive behaviour leading to very 4

0.56
slow transverse magnetic (TM) plasmonic modes that open the 0.55 3
way to miniaturized and low-loss devices, as well as interesting 0.54
sensing applications. Fig. 1 shows the real and imaginary part 0.53 2
of graphene’s surface impedance in the frequency range 0.1÷30 0.52 1
THz as computed by Eq. (1) by setting T=300 K, Γ=0.11 meV 0.51
and μc=0.13 eV, which are typical values for graphene. In the 0.50 0
following, the results obtained by the EM simulation tool CST 10 20 30
MWS Studio® will be displayed. The graphene layer has been Frequency (THz)
modeled in two similar ways: i) at 10 GHz as an infinitely-thin
ohmic sheet with assigned values of Rs and Xs at the operating Fig. 2. Real and imaginary part of gold’s surface impedance in the 9.38÷30
THz frequency band.
frequency; ii) at 10 THz as a 3 Å-thick ohmic sheet with
tabulated values of Zs as shown in Fig. 1. This difference is due
to the fact that, as stated above, Zs is for most resistive and III. 10 GHZ-RESONANT DIPOLE OVER A GRAPHENE HIS
constant at MW frequencies, being this not the case of the THz
The first application of graphene as HIS is for a 10 GHz-
range (see Fig. 1 in the interval 8÷12 THz, i.e. the band
resonant gold dipole antenna, as displayed in Fig. 3a with the
considered in the simulations) for which the graphene thickness
overall dimensions length L, width W and Gap. The thickness
has to be taken into account as well for accurate simulation
results. of the gold layer is 2 μm (hence enough to avoid losses due to
The radiating element in the two cases of study is a gold dipole skin-effect phenomena). λ0=30 mm is the wavelength in free-
or bow-tie antenna. Tabulated values of gold’s complex space).
relative permittivity εg=εg′-jεg″ in the 9.38÷30 THz band [3] Fig. 3b shows the antenna suspended over a square graphene
have been used to compute gold’s surface impedance Zg by layer with length ℓ=0.78λ0=23.4 mm deposited over 300 nm of
applying the following formulas [4], in which σg=σg′-jσg″ is the SiO2 (εr=3.9, tanδ=0.001) grown on high-resistivity silicon
complex conductivity of gold, ε0 is the vacuum permittivity, μ0 (εr=12.9, tanδ=0.00025) with a thickness of 500 μm. The
is the vacuum permeability and μr=1 is the relative permeability distance between the dipole and the ground is d=λ0/4=7.5 mm.
of gold: The latter value allows to suppress the image current,
nevertheless surface waves at the graphene-air interface need to
be considered, since they reach the boundaries of graphene. As

356
a consequence, they radiate into free-space and cause to 57 Ω and an imaginary part of -25 Ω have been obtained,
interferences and ripples on the radiation pattern downgrading with a very good voltage standing wave ratio VSWR=1.57.
the efficiency of the antenna. For graphene, we have set Better results have been obtained for Rs=150 Ω, since the
Zs=250+j0.25 Ω. imaginary part of the antenna input impedance is zero and the
L = 0.45λ0 = 13.5 mm real part is equal to 77 Ω, which can be easily matched to a
standard 50 Ω-impedance, while VSWR=1.094. The role of
W = 500 μm
graphene as HIS is clear in Fig. 5b, in which a magnification
Gap = 50 μm
of the side lobes of the E-field on the =0° (xz) plane is
displayed. From Fig. 5b we can infer that the side lobes can be
(a) significantly reduced by increasing Rs until they completely
disappear. The radiation efficiency ηrad was also computed: it
is equal to about 85% when Rs=50 Ω (i.e. when graphene’s
behaviour is closer to that of an electric conductor) and this
value decreases up to about 64% when Rs=950 Ω.
d For comparison we have simulated the same antenna for
different values of the distance d from 1.5 mm (λ0/20) to 6.5
ℓg mm (λ0/5), by using as reflector: i) a graphene layer with
Rs=50 Ω; ii) a 2 μm-thick gold layer, as shown in Fig. 5c. It is
apparent that side lobe amplitude reduces when using a
graphene HIS and an appropriate tuning of graphene’s surface
impedance allows to achieve a side lobe-free radiation. An
ℓg enhancement of the matching properties of the antenna has
been also verified when using a graphene HIS due to easy-to-
(b)
Fig. 3. a) 10 GHz gold dipole; b) CST layout with the antenna suspended match values of antenna input impedance even at a very close
over a graphene layer. distance of the gold radiator from the graphene reflector.
These results are very promising with respect to conventional
In Fig. 4 the reflection coefficient |S11| dB is shown: the metal reflector-based technologies in which (as stated in the
bandwidth in correspondence of |S11|=-10 dB is more than 1.5 Introduction) a narrow bandwidth and, hence, a periodical
GHz, which means a relative bandwidth of more than 15% texturing of the HIS reflectors are needed to achieve
with a value of |S11|≈-25 dB at 10 GHz. broadband performance.
0
-5
-10
-15
(dB)

-20
-25
-30
-35
8 9 10 11 12
Frequency (GHz)

Fig. 4. |S11| dB for the 10 GHz gold dipole suspended over a graphene (a) (b)
HIS in the frequency range 8÷12 GHz.
The computed directivity is reported in Fig. 5a. It is apparent MAX:
0.94
MAX:
1.18
that the graphene flake effectively acts as a reflector by
suppressing the back-radiation and guarantees at the same time
a good radiation efficiency (about 64%) with a good value of
the directivity (about 5.7 dBi). The surface resistance Rs can
be set equal to 950 Ω at Vb=0 V in agreement with previous
experimental results [5,6]. This value can be progressively
decreased up to 50 Ω by applying on graphene a bias voltage (c)
which must not exceed 5 V. By keeping a fixed value for Fig. 5. a) Computed directivity of the 10 GHz gold dipole for Rs=250 Ω; b)
Xs=0.25 Ω and decreasing Rs from 950 to 50 Ω, we have magnification of the E-field side lobes on the =0° (xz) plane for different
values of Rs; c) comparison of the side lobes when using a graphene (left) and
observed that the real part of antenna input impedance a gold (right) layer as reflector for different values of the distance d.
decreases from its value at 50 Ω, i.e. about 87 Ω. At 10 GHz,
for Rs=950 Ω a real part of the antenna input impedance equal

357
 IV. GRAPHENE RIS AS REFLECTOR FOR THZ ANTENNAS
The next application of graphene as reflector for low-
profile antennas is in the THz range [7]. Fig. 6a shows a 10
THz gold dipole directly attached to a square RIS-like
graphene layer, whereas Fig. 6b displays a 10 THz gold bow-
tie deposited over a graphene flake. In this case, the main
dimensions of the proposed antennas are: Ld=0.38λ0=11.25 μm
and Wd=1 μm for the dipole; Lbt=0.76λ0=22.55 μm and Wbt=13
μm for the bow-tie. In both cases, the gap between antenna
arms is 100 nm and the gold’s thickness is 200 nm.
graphene graphene
SiO2
Lbt
Ld
Wd
gold gold
(a) (b)
Fig. 6. a) 10 THz gold dipole over a graphene RIS; b) 10 THz gold bow-tie
over a graphene RIS.
Thanks to the inductive-type surface impedance of graphene in
the THz range, the gold radiators can be placed in contact with
the graphene reflector, thus providing a very compact design
and a great advantage for potential embedding of a graphene
nonlinear device (such as a diode) to achieve the goal of a
complete THz receiver design. The layouts of Fig. 6 give rise
to a different behaviour of antenna input impedance w.r.t. to
the case of an antenna suspended at distance d from graphene,
as discussed in Section III. In this case, the directivity (in Fig.
7) is about 6 dBi for the dipole and about 7.8 dBi for the bow-
tie, whereas the radiation efficiency is about 82% (dipole) and
94% (bow-tie). It is apparent how side lobes are absent and
back radiation is strongly reduced.
(a) (b)
Fig. 7. Computed directivity for a) the 10 THz gold dipole and b) the 10 THz
gold bow-tie deposited over a graphene RIS.
The dipole antenna input impedance ZA has been also
computed. For the dipole, the simulations show that there are
11 frequency points where the imaginary part Im{ZA} is zero
and thus allow perfect matching in agreement with RIS theory
[8]. In contrast to the dipole input impedance, zero values of
the imaginary part of bow-tie input impedance appear only at a
smaller number of points (namely 3) and at frequencies larger
than 11 THz.
Finally, we have performed simulations in the case of the
dipole antenna for Rs=10,50 Ω and for Xs=4,7,10 kΩ.
Increasing Rs entails that: i) Re{ZA} decreases; ii) |Im{ZA}|
decreases; iii) radiation efficiency decreases. On the other
hand, increasing Xs entails that: i) Re{ZA} and Im{ZA} become
almost constant over the entire band of interest, which
represents a great advantage for optimal impedance matching;
ii) back-radiation becomes negligible with no side lobes; iii)
radiation efficiency increases. Fig. 8 shows the horizontal (a)
and vertical (b) plane of the E-field radiation pattern for Rs=50
Ω and Xs=4,7,10 kΩ.
SiO2
Wbt
(a) (b)
Fig. 8. E-field radiation pattern of the 10 THz gold dipole over a graphene
RIS for Rs=50 Ω and Xs=4 (solid red line),7 (solid green line),10 (solid blue
line) kΩ: a) horizontal plane; b) vertical plane.
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have presented two different design
strategies for metal antennas operating at MW and THz
frequencies by exploiting a graphene reflector. Graphene’s
peculiar physical properties allow to achieve a twofold
purpose: i) easy-to-fabricate devices and ii) radiation pattern
tunability by applying a bias (gate) voltage on the graphene
layer. The proposed results are an encouraing start for a new
family of mm- and μm-systems for compact front-ends with
enhanced performance w.r.t. conventional metal reflectors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thank the European Commission for the financial
support via the FP 7 NANO RF (grant agreement 318352).
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