Commercial graphene nanoplatelets-based tunable attenuator

A commercial graphene nanoplatelets based tunable attenuator is proposed. The attenuator comprises of a couple of microstrip lines connected through a gap where the commercial graphene nanoplatelets are drop casted. The transmitted signal through the microstrip line can be varied by an applied DC bias voltage that alters the graphene resistance. The DC resistance of commercially acquired graphene is higher than labgrown graphene and so is the resulting minimum attenuation of the transmitted signal. The proposed structure is designed to reduce both the minimum graphene resistance and the transmission. The resultant dynamic range of attenuation is more than twice as compared to other series attenuators designed with lab grown graphene nanoplatelets. The operating frequency of the attenuator is from 1 GHz to 5 GHz with maximum dynamic range of attenuation almost 10 dB.