Graphene-based layered structure for quantum microwave signal up-conversion to the optical domain

A graphene-based layered structure is proposed for tunable conversion of quantum microwave signal to the optical frequency domain. The structure is composed of graphene layers filled with dielectric materials of different permittivities. The quantum microwave signal is driving the graphene layers. An optical pump signal is launched to the graphene layers. It then follows that an optical modulation is conducted, through electrically modifying the graphene conductivity, which results in generating an upper and lower optical sidebands. The destruction resonance of the layered medium is used to suppress the lower optical sideband; achieving low noise conversion. A quantum mechanics analysis is developed to model the interacting fields. In this work, two different filling materials are considered to enhance the destruction resonance of the grahene layers. Hence, significant suppression of the lower sideband is achieved. The presented numerical simulations show that large number (several hundreds) of converted photons can be achieved with only few tens of graphene layers, while efficient lower sideband suppression is attained. Importantly, the converted microwave frequency can be tuned over a vast range by altering the frequency of the optical pump.