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.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
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.
References
Bailey, R. L. A proposed new concept for a solar-energy converter. J. Eng. Power 94, 73–77 (1972).
Donchev, E. et al. The rectenna device: from theory to practice (a review). MRS Energy Sustain. 1, 1–34 (2014).
Moddel, G. & Grover, S. Rectenna Solar Cells (Springer, 2013).
Sanchez, A., Davis, J. C. F., Liu, K. C. & Javan, A. The MOM tunneling diode: theoretical estimate of its performance at microwave and infrared frequencies. J. Appl. Phys. 49, 5270–5277 (1978).
Wang, Y. et al. Receiving and transmitting light-like radio waves: antenna effect in arrays of aligned carbon nanotubes. Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 2607–2609 (2004).
Kempa, K. et al. Carbon nanotubes as optical antennae. Adv. Mater. 19, 421–426 (2007).
Knight, M. W., Sobhani, H., Nordlander, P. & Halas, N. J. Photodetection with active optical antennas. Science 332, 702–704 (2011).
Giugni, A. et al. Hot-electron nanoscopy using adiabatic compression of surface plasmons. Nature Nanotech. 8, 845–852 (2013).
Sachit, G., Saumil, J. & Garret, M. Quantum theory of operation for rectenna solar cells. J. Phys. D 46, 135106 (2013).
Joshi, S. & Moddel, G. Efficiency limits of rectenna solar cells: theory of broadband photon-assisted tunneling. Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 083901 (2013).
Brown, W. C. Optimization of the efficiency and other properties of the rectenna element. In Proc. Microwave Symposium, 1976 IEEE-MTT-S International 142–144 (1976).
Novotny, L. & van Hulst, N. Antennas for light. Nature Photon. 5, 83–90 (2011).
Songkil, K. et al. Fabrication of an ultralow-resistance ohmic contact to MWCNT–metal interconnect using graphitic carbon by electron beam-induced deposition (EBID). IEEE Trans. Nanotechnol. 11, 1223–1230 (2012).
Avouris, P., Freitag, M. & Perebeinos, V. Carbon-nanotube photonics and optoelectronics. Nature Photon. 2, 341–350 (2008).
Barkelid, M. & Zwiller, V. Photocurrent generation in semiconducting and metallic carbon nanotubes. Nature Photon. 8, 47–51 (2014).
Nanot, S., Hároz, E. H., Kim, J.-H., Hauge, R. H. & Kono, J. Optoelectronic properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes. Adv. Mater. 24, 4977–4994 (2012).
Nanot, S. et al. Broadband, polarization-sensitive photodetector based on optically thick films of macroscopically long, dense, and aligned carbon nanotubes. Sci. Rep. 3, 1335 (2013).
He, X. et al. Carbon nanotube terahertz detector. Nano Lett. 14, 3953–3958 (2014).
Frank, S., Poncharal, P., Wang, Z. L. & de Heer, W. A. Carbon nanotube quantum resistors. Science 280, 1744–1746 (1998).
Daneu, V., Sokoloff, D., Sanchez, A. & Javan, A. Extension of laser harmonic-frequency mixing techniques into the 9 μ region with an infrared metal–metal point-contact diode. Appl. Phys. Lett. 15, 398–401 (1969).
Simmons, J. G. Electric tunnel effect between dissimilar electrodes separated by a thin insulating film. J. Appl. Phys. 34, 2581–2590 (1963).
Xu, X. & Brandes, G. A method for fabricating large-area, patterned, carbon nanotube field emitters. Appl. Phys. Lett. 74, 2549–2551 (1999).
Ebbesen, T. W. et al. Electrical conductivity of individual carbon nanotubes. Nature 382, 54–56 (1996).
De Heer, W. A., Châtelain, A. & Ugarte, D. A carbon nanotube field-emission electron source. Science 270, 1179–1180 (1995).
Appenzeller, J., Radosavljević, M., Knoch, J. & Avouris, P. Tunneling versus thermionic emission in one-dimensional semiconductors. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 048301 (2004).
Ward, D. R., Huser, F., Pauly, F., Cuevas, J. C. & Natelson, D. Optical rectification and field enhancement in a plasmonic nanogap. Nature Nanotech. 5, 732–736 (2010).
Tu, X. W., Lee, J. H. & Ho, W. Atomic-scale rectification at microwave frequency. J. Chem. Phys. 124, 021105 (2006).
Kovacs, D. A., Winter, J., Meyer, S., Wucher, A. & Diesing, D. Photo and particle induced transport of excited carriers in thin film tunnel junctions. Phys. Rev. B 76, 235408 (2007).
Chalabi, H., Schoen, D. & Brongersma, M. L. Hot-electron photodetection with a plasmonic nanostripe antenna. Nano Lett. 14, 1374–1380 (2014).
Wang, F. & Melosh, N. A. Plasmonic energy collection through hot carrier extraction. Nano Lett. 11, 5426–5430 (2011).
Lerner, P. B., Miskovsky, N. M., Cutler, P. H., Mayer, A. & Chung, M. S. Thermodynamic analysis of high frequency rectifying devices: determination of the efficiency and other performance parameters. Nano Energy 2, 368–376 (2013).
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.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
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
Ethics declarations
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.
Supplementary information
Supplementary information
Supplementary information (PDF 5781 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
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
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.220
This article is cited by
Millimeter-wave to near-terahertz sensors based on reversible insulator-to-metal transition in VO2
Communications Materials (2023)
Isolation of current–voltage characteristics for each layer of a two-layer dielectric using the example of Al–Al2O3–Ta2O5–Ni diodes with different tantalum oxide thicknesses
Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics (2023)
Tunnel field-effect transistors for sensitive terahertz detection
Nature Communications (2021)
Effect of vacancy defects on the electronic transport properties of an Ag–ZnO–Pt sandwich structure
Journal of Computational Electronics (2021)
High-current density and high-asymmetry MIIM diode based on oxygen-non-stoichiometry controlled homointerface structure for optical rectenna
Scientific Reports (2019)