| Summary: | In this work, a graphene-based single-stage high-order subharmonic mixer is presented. The device is able to up- and downconvert a signal in the 330-500 GHz frequency range, using a local oscillator signal with frequency located in the 26-40 GHz band. It exploits the strong nonlinear electromagnetic behavior exhibited by macroscopic graphene sheets when they are exposed to an incident electromagnetic wave to generate the output signal as a mixing product between the input signal and a high-order harmonic component of the local oscillator, which is internally generated without requiring additional circuitry. A prototype was implemented and its performance was experimentally characterized considering several different local oscillator multiplication orders. The maximum measured downconversion gain is around -50 dB, whereas the maximum output signal reached when working as upconverter is -43 dBm at 340 GHz and -63 dBm at 480 GHz. These values are good enough to be used in practical short-range applications. Furthermore, the measurement results are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions about graphene behavior.
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