Reflectarray antenna at terahertz using graphene

The use of graphene for fixed-beam reflectarray antennas at Terahertz (THz) is proposed. Graphene's unique electronic band structure leads to a complex surface conductivity at THz frequencies, which allows the propagation of very slow plasmonic modes. This leads to a drastic reduction of the electrical size of the array unit cell and thereby good array performance. The proposed reflectarray has been designed at 1.3 THz and comprises more than 25 000 elements of size about lambda(0)/16. The array reflective unit cell is analyzed using a full vectorial approach, taking into account the variation of the angle of incidence and assuming local periodicity. Good performance is obtained in terms of bandwidth, cross-polar, and grating lobes suppression, proving the feasibility of graphene-based reflectarrays and other similar spatially fed structures at Terahertz frequencies. This result is also a first important step toward reconfigurable THz reflectarrays using graphene electric field effect.