Excitation and Active Control of Propagating Surface Plasmon Polaritons in Graphene

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 13; no. 8; pp. 3698 - 3702
• Main Authors: Gao, Weilu, Shi, Gang, Jin, Zehua, Shu, Jie, Zhang, Qi, Vajtai, Robert, Ajayan, Pulickel M, Kono, Junichiro, Xu, Qianfan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 14.08.2013
• Subjects: Collective excitations (including excitons, polarons, plasmons and other charge-density excitations); Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Diffraction gratings; Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures; Exact sciences and technology; Excitation; Fullerenes and related materials; Fullerenes and related materials; diamonds, graphite; Gates; Graphene; Infrared and raman spectra and scattering; Materials science; Optical properties and condensed-matter spectroscopy and other interactions of matter with particles and radiation; Physics; Plasmonics; Polaritons; Propagation; Specific materials; Surface and interface electron states; Surface chemistry; Visible and ultraviolet spectra; nanophotonics; infrared optoelectronics; graphene surface plasmon polaritons; Active plasmonics; Calcium nitride; Graphene; Resonance frequency; Plasmon polariton interaction; Gallium tellurides; Monolayers; Logic gates; Silicon; Infrared spectra; Absorption spectra; Surface plasmons; Gates
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl401591k

We demonstrate the excitation and gate control of highly confined surface plasmon polaritons propagating through monolayer graphene using a silicon diffractive grating. The normal-incidence infrared transmission spectra exhibit pronounced dips due to guided-wave resonances, whose frequencies can be tuned over a range of ∼80 cm–1 by applying a gate voltage. This novel structure provides a way to excite and actively control plasmonic waves in graphene and is thus an important building block of graphene plasmonic systems.