Significant enhancement of optical absorption of graphene inside a metallic optical microcavity

Abstract

The increase in the optical absorption of the graphene layers above the value of 2.3% of the bare layer in vacuum is of great interest for application in opto-electronics. A monolayer graphene sheet embedded in a stacked dielectric layers has been shown to reach an absorption up to 50%. Here, we theoretically show that the absorption could be significantly enhanced to greater than 50% via boosting the environmental permeability by using an empty optical cavity. This enhancement is nearly independent on the structure of the environment around the graphene sheet, except for the dimensional parameters of the cavity. The obtained results are crucial for motional control of graphene sheets by an all-optical method.