Role of metallic substrate on the plasmon modes in double-layer graphene structures

Abstract

Abstract Novel heterostructures combining different layered materials offer new opportunities for applications and fundamental studies of collective excitations driven by interlayer Coulomb interactions. In this work, we have investigated the influence of the metallic-like substrate on the plasmon spectrum of a double layer graphene system and a structure consisting of conventional two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) immersed in a semiconductor quantum well and a graphene sheet with an interlayer separation of d . Long-range Coulomb interactions between substrate and graphene layered systems lead a new set of spectrum plasmons. At long wavelengths ( q → 0 ) the acoustic modes ( ω ~ q ) depend, besides on the carrier density in each layer, on the distance between the first carrier layer and the substrate in both structures. Furthermore, in the relativistic/nonrelativistic layered structure an undamped acoustic mode emerges for a certain interlayer critical distance d c . On the other hand, the optical plasmon modes emerging from the coupling of the double-layer systems and the substrate, both start at finite frequency at q= 0 in contrast to the collective excitation spectrum ω ~ q 1/2 reported in the literature for double-layer graphene structures.