Circular terahertz ratchets in a two-dimensionally modulated Dirac system

We report on the observation of the circular ratchet effect excited by terahertz laser radiation in a specially designed two-dimensional metamaterial consisting of a graphene monolayer deposited on a few-layer graphene gate patterned with an array of triangular antidots. We show that a periodically driven Dirac fermion system with spatial asymmetry converts the a.c. power into a d.c. current, whose direction reverses when the radiation helicity is switched. The circular ratchet effect is demonstrated for room temperature and a radiation frequency of 2.54 THz. It is shown that the ratchet current magnitude can be controllably tuned by the patterned and uniform back gate voltages. The results are analyzed in the light of the developed microscopic theory considering electronic and plasmonic mechanisms of the ratchet current formation. Published by the American Physical Society 2024