Scientists have turned graphene into a universal infrared wave sensor

Graphene is one of the allotropic modifications of carbon, which consists of flat sheets

one atom thick, consisting of hexagonal cells. Graphene has many properties useful for modern materials science, for example, its superconductivity, the discovery of which was published in Naturecalledthe main sensation of 2018, or the opportunitytransformationsheat into electricity.

However, graphene in its pure form is not suitable foruse in electronic devices, solar cells and lasers. For this, scientists add various impurities to it, which greatly change the properties of the material for the worse.

In a new work, researchers found a way aroundthis is a limitation. Adding layers of arsenic and black phosphorus to graphene made it possible to strongly change the nature of the interaction of the material with light. This allowed the structure to absorb light in a very wide frequency range, including far infrared and terahertz radiation.

If you apply the right voltage, the workerthe range of such receivers can be changed without loss of signal reception quality. We calculated the parameters of light-sensitive elements made on the basis of a graphene monolayer, which can capture far-infrared light. Such photodetectors can replace almost any infrared and terahertz radiation sensors used today.

Victor Ryzhiy, lead author of the study

Previouslywas reportedthat chemists improved the properties of graphene with chicken droppings.