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A carbon nanotube optical rectenna

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Abstract

An optical rectenna—a device that directly converts free-propagating electromagnetic waves at optical frequencies to direct current—was first proposed over 40 years ago1, yet this concept has not been demonstrated experimentally due to fabrication challenges at the nanoscale2,3. Realizing an optical rectenna requires that an antenna be coupled to a diode that operates on the order of 1 PHz (switching speed on the order of 1 fs). Diodes operating at these frequencies are feasible if their capacitance is on the order of a few attofarads3,4, but they remain extremely difficult to fabricate and to reliably couple to a nanoscale antenna2. Here we demonstrate an optical rectenna by engineering metal–insulator–metal tunnel diodes, with a junction capacitance of 2 aF, at the tip of vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (10 nm in diameter), which act as the antenna5,6. Upon irradiation with visible and infrared light, we measure a d.c. open-circuit voltage and a short-circuit current that appear to be due to a rectification process (we account for a very small but quantifiable contribution from thermal effects). In contrast to recent reports of photodetection based on hot electron decay in a plasmonic nanoscale antenna7,8, a coherent optical antenna field appears to be rectified directly in our devices, consistent with rectenna theory4,9,10. Finally, power rectification is observed under simulated solar illumination, and there is no detectable change in diode performance after numerous current–voltage scans between 5 and 77 °C, indicating a potential for robust operation.

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Figure 1: Carbon nanotube optical rectenna.
Figure 2: MWNT-I-M tunnel diode characteristics.
Figure 3: Optical rectification of infrared, visible and simulated solar light.
Figure 4: Optical rectification voltage and device responsivity.

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Change history

  • 09 October 2015

    In the version of this Letter originally published online, in the abstract, 'pHz' should have been 'PHz'. This error has now been corrected in all versions of the Letter.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under Young Faculty Award grant no. N66001-09-1-2091 (Program manager: Nibir Dhar) and by the Army Research Office under Young Investigator Program agreement no. W911NF-13-1-0491 (Program manager: William W. Clark). The authors thank S. Singh for help with metal deposition, B. Kippelen for providing access to testing facilities and several colleagues for helpful discussions.

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Contributions

B.A.C. conceived the rectenna device and wrote the manuscript with comments and edits from all authors. A.S. and V.S. fabricated the devices and characterized materials. A.S. measured the rectenna response on all devices. T.L.B. performed device modelling and thermoelectric response experiments. All authors contributed to data analysis and interpretation.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Baratunde A. Cola.

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Competing interests

Georgia Tech has applied for a patent, application no. PCT/US2013/065918, related to the design methods and materials produced in this work.

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Sharma, A., Singh, V., Bougher, T. et al. A carbon nanotube optical rectenna. Nature Nanotech 10, 1027–1032 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.220

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