Abstract
The terahertz band is an increasingly important spectrum in a wide range of applications from bioimaging and medical diagnostics to security and wireless communications. We propose a tunable terahertz coherent radiation source based on graphene plasmon-induced transition radiation. The transition radiation in terahertz regime arises from the graphene plasmons, which are excited by a normally incident bunched electron beam. We analyze the field-intensities and spectral-angular distributions of the transition radiation with respect to Fermi energy, substrate dielectric permittivity, and electron bunch energy for both the coherent and incoherent radiation. The effect of electron bunching on the radiation pattern is discussed. The mechanism of plasmon frequency-selective transition radiation is discovered. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America